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HISTORY   PRIMERS, 

JOHN  RICHARD  GREEN. 


CLASSICAL  ANTIQUITIES. 


II. 


\ 


ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES. 


ROMAN    TOGA. 


mm.       Edited  by  J.  R.  GREEN. 


CLASSICAL   ANTIQUITIES. 
II. 


ROMAN 
ANTIQUITIES. 


BY 

A.    S.    WILKINS,    M.A., 

OWENS   COLLEGE,    MANCHESTER. 


\ 


WITH 


/ 

NEW    YORK: 

.    APPLETON    AJ>H3    COMPANY, 
'BOND    STREET. 

1884. 


presented  to  the 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  •  SAN  DIEGO 
by 

FRIENDS  OF  THE  LIBRARY 


MR.   JOHN  _(\  _ROSE 

donor 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

THE  ROMAN  CHARACTER 5 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE  ROMAN'S  DWELLINGS 15 

CHAPTER  III. 
THE  ROMAN'S  DAILY  LIFE 32 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  ROMAN  FAMILY 49 

CHAPTER  V. 
THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE 81 

CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  ROMAN'S  RELIGION 105 

APPENDIX 122 

LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

ROMAN  TOGA Frontispiece, 

1.  GROUND-PLAN  OF  A  HOUSE  AT  POMPEII      ...  I/ 

2.  PLAN  OF  AN  ORDINARY  ROMAN  HOUSE.     ...  19 

3-    PLAN   OF   ROME 23 

4.   ATRIUM  OF  A  ROMAN   HOUSE  (restored).     ...  28 

5-    SMALL   PRIVATE    I'.ATJi 42 

6.  HANDMAIDEN  DRESSING  A  BRIDE 76 

7.  THE  CIRCUS  (restored  by  Canina) 95 


ROMAN    ANTIQUITIES. 


CHAPTER  I. 
THE  ROMAN  CHARACTER. 

THE  great  deeds  of  the  Roman  people,  and  the 
growth  of  their  empire,  from  the  little  cluster  of  shep- 
herd's huts  on  the  hills  by  the  Tiber's  bank,  out  to 
the  furthest  bounds  of  the  civilized  world,  have  been 
told  already  in  another  of  the  books  of  this  series, 
the  Primer  of  Roman  History.  But,  if  we  wish 
to  know  aright  the  life  of  any  nation,  it  is  not  enough 
that  we  should  learn  the  battles  that  they  fought, 
and  the  lands  which  they  conquered,  or  even 
the  lives  of  the  great  and  wise  men  that  lived 
among  them.  We  need  to  be  able  to  picture  them 
to  ourselves  as  they  went  about  in  their  daily  life. 
We  want  to  know  about  the  houses  that  they  lived 
in,  the  food  they  ate,  the  dress  they  wore.  We  have 
to  learn  how  they  spent  their  days;  what  trades  and 
professions  were  common  among  them ;  and  how 
they  behaved  to  their  women,  their  children,  and 
their  servants.  Above  all,  we  have  to  do  our  best 
to  enter  into  their  ways  of  thinking  about  their  lives 
and  the  proper  ways  of  spending  them,  about  their 
duties  to  their  neighbours,  to  other  nations,  and  to 
the  Unseen  Powers.  Whatever  the  country  is  of  which 
we  are  reading,  it  is  not  well  to  pass  by  things  like 
these,  which  help  to  make  the  life  of  the  people 
much  more  real  and  vivid  to  us.  But  least  of  all 
can  we  afford  to  do  so  in  the  case  of  the  Greeks 


6  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

and  Romans.  Here,  more  than  anywhere,  there  is 
a  danger  that  we  should  have  vague  and  shadowy 
notions  of  the  life  that  was  really  lived  in  the  days 
that  seem  so  far  away.  We  talk  of  the  languages 
spoken  then  as  "  dead  languages,"  and  so  in  a  sense 
they  are ;  that  is  to  say,  the  forms  in  which  they  are 
spoken  now  are  very  different  from  those  of  earlier 
times.  But  we  are  apt  to  forget  that  there  is  nothing 
in  the  world  more  really  living  to-day  than  the  thoughts 
which  spring  from  the  poems  and  the  sculptures  of 
Greece,  from  the  laws  and  the  government  of  Rome. 
And  so  in  the  mists  and  darkness  of  a  distant  past, 
we  lose  all  sense  of  a  life  that  was  like  our  own  in 
its  homely  daily  cares  and  occupations. 

The  chief  purpose  of  this  little  book  will  be,  then, 
to  give  some  help  towards  picturing  afresh  that  old 
Roman  life,  and  clothing  what  are  too  often  the 
ghostly  shadows  of  history  with  forms  of  flesh  and 
blood,  that  may  bring  them  nearer  to  ourselves. 

2.  The  national  Roman  character. — We  first 
catch  sight  of  the  people  of  Rome  at  the  time  when 
their  settlement  by  the  bank  of  the  Tiber  began  to 
be  lifting  its  head  above  the  rest  of  the  Latin  towns, 
the  youngest  but  the  strongest  of  them  all.  Rome 
was  built  by  a  band  of  Latin  colonists  on  a  group 
of  hills  of  no  great  height,  rising  close  together  on 
the  southern  bank  of  the  Tiber.  Its  site  seems  to 
tell  us  of  itself  what  was  the  purpose  of  its  founding. 
As  you  sail  up  the  Tiber  from  its  mouth,  the  hills  of 
Rome  are  plainly  seen  to  be  the  nearest  place  to 
the  sea  where  a  fortress  could  be  built  to  shelter 
the  Latin  traders  from  the  Etruscan  foes  to  the  north 
of  them.  We  see,  then,  that  first  and  foremost  we 
must  think  of  the  city  of  Rome  as  a  fortified  trading 
outpost  for  the  towns  of  the  Latin  league.  But  it 
did  not  long  remain  so.  The  stories  of  its  earliest 
days — little  as  we  can  trust  to  the  legends  that  they 
tell  us — and  many  of  the  customs  of  a  later  time 
appear  to  point  us  to  a  union  of  two  separate  towns 


I.]  THE  ROMAN  CHARACTER.  7 

in  one.  The  Sabines  of  the  hilly  inland  country,  as 
well  as  the  Latins  of  the  plain,  had  their  fortified 
outpost  on  one  of  the  hills  which  were  afterwards 
enclosed  within  the  walls  of  Rome.  The  Latins  on 
the  Palatine,  the  Sabines  on  the  Quirinal,  faced  each 
other  at  first  as  jealous  rivals.  But  a  life  of  enmity 
could  not  last  between  men  who  were  encamped 
within  little  more  than  a  spear's  throw  of  each  other. 
They  had  either  to  fight  it  out  to  the  death,  or  to 
join  in  friendly  alliance :  and  happily  they  were  able 
to  do  .the  latter.  From  the  union  of  the  two  was 
formed  the  Roman  people  of  the  Quirites  (populus 
Romanus  Qiiiritiuni),  It  may  have  been  the  ming- 
ling of  two  different  races  which  gave  to  the  Roman 
people  its  own  distinctive  character ;  but  of  this  we 
cannot  be  certain.  What  that  is  which  fixes  what 
a  nation  is  to  be,  is  one  of  the  hardest  questions  of 
history.  The  science  of  language  teaches  us  with 
certainty  that  the  forefathers  of  the  Italian  races,  and 
of  all  the  tribes  of  Greece,  as  well  as  of  the  Kelts,  the 
Germans,  the  Slaves,  the  Persians,  and  the  Hindoos 
lived  together,  as  a  united  people,  commonly,  but 
hardly  correctly,  called  the  Aryans.  But  after  they  had 
parted  from  each  other,  hundreds  or  even  thousands 
of  years  must  have  passed,  before  we  meet  them  again 
on  the  field  of  history.  Of  the  manner  in  which  they 
spent  their  time  we  have  hardly  the  faintest  know- 
ledge. Only  it  is  certain  that  each  tribe  must  have 
been  living  under  very  different  circumstances  from 
those  of  the  others.  At  first  their  laws  and  govern- 
ment, their  customs  and  occupations,  their  knowledge 
of  nature  and  of  arts,  their  religious  beliefs  and  cere- 
monies, cannot  have  widely  differed.  What  is  known 
as  the  comparative  method  of  studying  language,  politics, 
and  religion  helps  us  to  form  some  notion  of  that  which 
at  first  they  had  in  common ;  and  we  can  see  how 
already  they  shared  the  germs  of  much  which  was 
afterwards  developed  in  very  various  fashions.  But 
differences  of  climate  and  of  scenery,  differences  of 


8  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

food  and  of  pursuits,  the  different  foreign  nations  with 
whom  they  fought  and  traded,  the  different  forms  of 
government  under  which  they  came  to  live,  all  worked 
together  to  give  to  each  separate  branch  of  the  one 
great  stock  a  character  quite  its  own.  So  we  find 
the  Greeks  and  the  Italians,  near  kinsmen  as  they 
were,  each  with  ways  of  living  and  thinking  widely 
differing  from  those  of  the  others.  The  things  which 
the  Greeks  cared  most  for,  were  of  little  importance 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Romans,  and  so  on  the  other  hand, 
the  vices  which  the  Roman  thought  the  most  dis- 
graceful, were  but  little  regarded  by  the  Greek,  and 
were  sometimes  even  thought  to  be  qualities  much  to 
be  desired.  Hence  it  came  to  pass  that  in  the  later 
days,  when  the  Greeks  were  brought  much  into  con- 
tact with  the  Romans,  there  was  often  a  mutual  dis- 
like, which  was  based  upon  something  like  contempt. 
The  genuine  Roman  looked  down  with  the  pride  of 
a  master  on  the  supple,  cringing,  and  fawning  falsehood 
of  the  degenerate  Greeks  of  his  own  time.  The  wily 
Greek  mocked  in  his  sleeve  the  domineering  lord 
whom  he  gulled  by  his  flatteries,  and  felt  an  equal 
contempt  for  the  Roman  ignorance  and  boorishness, 
whether  they  were  open  and  undisguised,  or  whether 
they  were  cloaked  under  the  idle  affectation  of  a 
patronage  of  art  and  letters.  This  state  of  feeling 
was  seen  most  clearly  in  the  time  of  the  Empire,  when 
Romans  and  Greeks  alike  had  fallen  far  from  their 
nobler  state.  But  it  came  quite  naturally  out  of  the 
essential  difference  between  the  character  of  the  two 
great  nations. 

3.  The  basis  of  the  Roman  character. — At 
the  basis  of  the  Roman  character  lay  the  habit  of 
obedience  to  authority.  This  began  with  their  earliest 
years.  We  shall  see  hereafter  how  the  absolute  power 
of  the  father  in  the  household  was  that  upon  which 
all  law  and  order  were  founded.  What  the  father 
was  to  the  family,  that  the  state  was  to  the  general 
body  of  citizens.  Those  in  whose  hands  it  placed  its 


t.]  THE  ROMAN  CHARACTER.  g 

authority,  had  all  its  full  and  unlimited  power  for  the 
time  of  holding  office.  After  a  magistrate  had  laid  down 
his  post,  he  could  be  tried  and  punished  by  the  people 
for  any  offence  he  had  committed,  but  so  long  as 
he  was  magistrate  of  the  people,  no  one  might  venture 
to  resist  his  commands,  or  to  call  him  to  account 
for  his  actions.  A  refusal  to  obey  the  orders  of  a 
lawful  magistrate  was  regarded  as  a  shocking  crime, 
deserving  of  instant  death.  The  despotic  power 
which  would  thus  appear  to  lie  in  the  hands  of  the 
magistrates,  was  tempered  in  various  ways.  In  the 
first  place,  with  rare  exceptions,  magistrates  were 
always  appointed  in  pairs ;  each  one  had  at  his  side 
a  colleague,  with  power  as  unlimited  as  his  own. 
Hence,  whatever  the  one  ordained,  it  was  possible 
for  the  other  to  forbid,  and  naturally  the  right  of 
obstruction  was  allowed  to  carry  the  day  over  the 
right  of  action.  Then,  again,  the  powers  of  the 
various  authorities,  though  unlimited  by  positive  law, 
were  restricted  very  closely  by  unwritten  custom.  To 
this  the  Romans  were  trained  to  be  at  least  as  obe- 
dient as  to  the  voice  of  the  magistrate,  or  to  the 
written  statutes.  The  custom  of  their  ancestors  (mos 
maiorum]  was  of  binding  force  for  them.  Any  de- 
parture from  it  was  suffered  to  go  unpunished  by 
men,  only  because  they  were  sure  the  anger  of  the 
gods  would  rest  upon  the  innovator.  What  a  consul 
had  it  in  his  power  to  do,  was  very  rarely  thought 
of,  we  may  be  sure ;  it  was  what  the  consuls  had 
been  accustomed  to  do,  which  was  taken  as  the  guide 
for  action.  In  course  of  time  these  checks  became 
too  feeble :  and  the  history  of  Rome,  in  its  internal 
affairs,  is  largely  the  history  of  repeated  attempts  to 
fit  old  offices  to  later  needs  by  devices  not  strange 
to  the  spirit  of  the  constitution.  But  our  concern  is 
here  only  with  the  general  character  of  the  Roman 
nation,  and  to  understand  this  aright  we  must  start 
with  the  habit  of  obedience,  ingrained  in  the  very 
life  of  the  people.  The  early  history  of  the  city  is 


io  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

little  more  than  one  long  series  of  struggles  between 
the  pitricians,  who  had  already  all  the  rights  of  citizens, 
and  the  plebeians,  to  whom  many  were  at  first  denied. 
In  a  Greek  city  every  struggle  would  have  made  the 
streets  of  the  town  run  blood,  and  there  would  have 
been  little  hope  of  a  peaceful  settlement,  except  with 
the  slaughter  or  banishment  of  one  of  the  rival  parties. 
In  Rome  we  read  of  tumults,  but  they  were  rarely,  if 
ever,  bloody  ones  :  we  hear  of  deeds  of  harshness  and 
tyranny,  but  they  were  done  in  the  regular  process 
of  the  law,  or  were  strictly  within  the  function  of  the 
magistrates  :  and  at  last  the  two  great  parties  settled 
down  quietly  side  by  side,  rivals  only  in  serving  their 
common  country,  and  carrying  its  eagles  onwards,  vic- 
torious over  every  enemy.  This  habit  of  obedience,  this 
reverence  for  authority,  was  of  all  the  qualities  of  the 
Roman  perhaps  that  one  which  had  most  to  do  with 
making  his  influence  so  mighty  on  the  history  of  the 
world.  His  stubborn  and  relentless  energy,  his  un- 
shaken courage  in  trial  and  defeat,  the  warmth  of  his 
love  for  his  country,  have  all  been  equalled  among 
nations  that  have  left  but  faint  traces  of  their  action. 
But  the  Roman  added  to  these  a  readiness  to  follow 
orders,  to  submit  to  discipline,  to  work  with  his 
fellows  for  the  good  of  all.  It  may  be  that  this  power 
of  united  action  dates  from  the  days  when  the  Latin 
and  the  Sabine  settlement  joined  together  to  form 
a  state,  which  should  take  in  and  govern  all.  Cer- 
tainly there  never  was  a  land  where,  more  than  at 
Rome,  the  good  of  the  state,  as  a  whole,  was  the 
aim  of  every  citizen.  In  some  of  the  towns  of  Greece, 
and  especially  at  Sparta,  the  state  took  upon  itself 
to  order  the  life  of  all  its  members,  to  a  degree  ex- 
ceeding anything  that  was  ever  attempted  at  Rome. 
But  still  we  may  mark  a  difference.  Everything  was 
done  by  the  state  at  Sparta,  but  everything  was  not 
done  for  it.  Many  of  the  rules  ordained  could  have 
no  other  motive  than  the  perfection  of  the  individual 
citizen.  The  state  as  a  whole  might  well  have  been 


I.]  THE  ROMAfr  CHARACTER.  II 

much  stronger  and  happier  under  freer  and  more 
liberal  laws ;  but  it  was  doubtful  whether  each  several 
Spartan  citizen  could  have  reached  the  same  perfect 
development  under  a  life  less  rigorous.  Now  at  Rome 
the  case  was  otherwise.  The  government  meddled 
but  little  with  the  training  of  its  citizens.  Magistrates 
of  high  authority,  under  the  name  of  Censors,  were 
chosen  to  look  after  the  lives  and  manners  of  the 
people.  But  their  chief  duty  was  to  see  that  the 
customs  of  their  forefathers  (mos  maioruni)  were  not 
departed  from,  to  check  any  changes,  and  to  mark 
with  public  censure  notorious  vice  or  crime.  It  was 
in  his  home,  from  the  lessons  and  example  of  his 
father,  that  a  Roman  boy  learned  to  live  for  his 
country,  and  to  be  proud  above  all  things  of  the 
name  of  Roman  citizen ;  and  he  learnt  his  lesson  well. 
4.  The  Roman  honour  of  women. — Of  all 
the  nations  of  the  old  world,  there  was  none  in  which 
women  were  held  so  much  in  honour  as  at  Rome. 
It  is  true  that,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  the  wife  in  the 
old  days  passed  into  the  power — the  hand  (manus) — 
of  the  husband.  His  rights  over  her  were  unbounded, 
except  by  religion  and  the  feelings  of  the  people  at 
large.  But  these  required  that  she  should  be  treated 
with  respect,  and  even  with  reverence.  In  the  family, 
where  the  husband  was  master,  she  was  not  less 
mistress.  It  was  her  part  especially  to  look  after  the 
slaves  of  the  household ;  and  to  join  them  herself 
in  spinning  the  wool  which  furnished  the  clothing  for 
the  family.  Even  in  the  days  of  the  Empire,  the 
women  who  loved  the  old-fashioned  ways  still  took 
pleasure  in  doing  this :  and  Augustus  himself  was 
proud  to  wear  the  dress  that  had  been  spun  and 
made  for  him  by  -his  haughty  and  high-born  wife 
Livia.  We  shall  have  to  say  more  of  the  position 
of  women  hereafter.  It  is  only  to  be  noticed  here, 
that  one  of  the  chief  things  that  gave  to  the  Romans 
their  national  character,  was  their  simple,  pure,  well- 
ordered  family  life. 
8*  2 


12  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

>/       5.    The   Roman    ideal  of  character. — The 

character  at  which  it  was  thought  to  be  proper  that 
a  Roman  citizen  should  aim,  is  given  in  one  word, 
s;ravitas.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  translate  the 
word  into  English ;  and  we  do  not  find  the  task 
much  easier  if  we  look  for  a  Greek  word  that  answers 
to  it  exactly.  Perhaps  it  is  "dignity"  which  comes 
most  near  to  it.  The  Roman  gravitas  was  used  to 
cover  everything  which  gave  to  a  man  weight  and  in- 
fluence with  his  fellow-citizens.  Hence  it  was  directly 
opposed  to  levitas,  for  this  denoted  everything  which 
made  a  citizen  seem  of  little  importance  in  the  eyes 
of  his  fellows.  "  Gravity,"  of  course,  excluded  foolish 
and  unbecoming  jesting;  but  its  range  was  much 
wider  than  this.  It  was  opposed  to  fickleness  and 
rashness,  and  so  it  denoted  a  sober  and  resolute  ad- 
herence to  plans  that  were  formed  after  mature  and 
deliberate  thought.  If  it  were  accompanied  with 
kindliness  and  wit,  so  much  the  better,  of  course, 
at  any  rate  in  the  judgment  of  the  men  of  the  later 
Republic ;  and  so  Cicero  does  not  fail  to  notice  how 
all  were  united  in  his  ideal  Roman  noble,  the  younger 
Scipio  Africanus.  But  the  most  essential  part  of  the 
character,  the  very  backbone  of  the  whole,  was  their 
steadfast  and  sober  trustworthiness. 
/  6.  Defects  of  the  Roman  character. — The 
points  which  we  have  noticed  as  yet  are  such  as  to 
call  for  our  respect,  much  rather  than  our  affection. 
And  indeed  respect  is  the  feeling  which  naturally 
arises  towards  a  Roman  of  the  true  old  type.  In 
the  later  days  of  the  Republic,  and  under  the  Empire, 
there  were  not  wanting  characters  who  were  gifted 
with  a  much  more  attractive  charm.  The  letters  of 
the  younger  Pliny,  for  instance,  show  us  a  man  who, 
though  not  without  his  weaknesses,  quite  deserves 
to  be  called  a  thorough  gentleman.  But  Pliny  and 
men  like  him  had  gathered  all  that  was  best  in  the 
letters  and  the  arts  of  Greece.  With  much  of  the 
rugged  strength  of  the  earlier  days,  they  had  also 


I.]  THE  ROMAN  CHARACTER.  13 

lost  its  harshness.  But,  except  in  such  late  and 
favoured  instances,  the  qualities,  which  lend  such  a 
charm  to  the  Athenians,  were  strikingly  absent  from 
the  Romans.  The  Greek  was  distinguished  for  his 
quick  sympathies  (Greek  Antiquities,  p.  8) ;  the  Roman 
was  hard  and  unsympathizing.  The  Greek  rated  beauty 
above  all  things,  and  could  hardly  conceive  of  good- 
ness as  existing  apart  from  it.  The  Roman  to  the 
last  was  nothing  of  an  artist,  and  the  sculptures  which 
adorned  the  streets  and  gardens  of  Rome,  when  such 
things  came  into  fashion,  were,  with  hardly  an  ex- 
ception, the  work  of  foreigners.  For  the  Greek  the 
notion  of  virtue  (dpe-nj)  was  one  with  that  of  excel- 
lence, and  the  phrase  was  probably  used,  in  the  first 
case,  of  the  perfect  production  of  some  beautiful 
object.  For  the  Roman  virtue  was  manly  prowess, 
the  readiness  to  do  and  to  dare  in  battle.  The 
Greeks  were  proud  of  their  own  distinctness  from  the 
barbarians  who  spoke  a  different  tongue  and  wor- 
shipped other  gods :  but  at  any  rate  they  recognized 
some  duties  towards  them.  The  Romans  looked 
upon  every  stranger  as  an  enemy,  and  had  in  the 
early  times  only  one  word  for  both.  Cicero  tells  us 
this  to  show  how  kindly  the  early  Romans  felt  to 
foreigners :  he  says  that  they  would  not  call  even 
those  with  whom  they  were  fighting  enemies,  but  spoke 
of  them  simply  as  strangers.  But  Cicero  lived  at  a 
time  when  the  minds  of  men  were  full  of  the  thoughts 
that  had  come  to  them  from  the  wise  and  good  Greek 
teachers.  We  may  be  sure  that  if  his  forefathers 
used  the  same  word  (hostis]  for  enemies  and  for 
strangers,  it  was  just  because  they  thought  every 
stranger  was  an  enemy  to  be  fought  with  whenever 
they  pleased  to  do  so.  It  was  only  when  they  had 
made  a  treaty  of  peace  with  a  neighbouring  nation, 
that  they  felt  to  have  any  duty  towards  them ;  and 
even  this  was  measured  only  by  the  strict  letter  of 
the  treaty.  We  find  the  Romans  often  enough  speak- 
ing of  their  enemies  as  "  faithless  j"  but  in  almost 


14  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

every  one  of  the  cases  that  we  read  about  in  history, 
the  bad  faith  lies  with  the  Romans,  and  not  with 
their  enemies.  This  is  plain  if  we  judge  the  Romans 
by  the  stories  of  their  own  historians ;  but  if  we  had 
preserved  to  us  any  histories  written  by  those  of 
the  other  side,  such  as  the  Samnites  or  the  Cartha- 
ginians, no  doubt  we  should  find  in  them  many  more 
instances. 

There  is  also  another  point  on  which  the  Romans 
differed  widely  from  the  Greeks  :  that  is,  in  their  love 
for  discussions.  This  has  been  shown  elsewhere  (Greek 
Antiquities,  p.  9)  to  have  done  very  much  to  have 
made  the  Greeks — and  especially  the  Athenians — 
what  they  were.  It  is  true  that  at  Rome,  just  as 
at  Athens,  there  were  assemblies  of  all  the  citizens, 
which  had  to  decide  on  every  important  question ; 
speeches  were  addressed  to  these  meetings  by  the 
leading  men  of  the  state ;  and  the  power  of  speaking 
well  was  very  much  prized,  and  diligently  cultivated, 
especially  in  the  later  days  of  the  republic.  But  free 
debate  was  never  the  same  delight  to  the  people  at 
Rome  that  it  was  at  Athens.  The  Romans  with 
their  habits  of  obedience  to  authority  did  not  feel 
the  same  need  for  having  a  matter  discussed  on  every 
side,  before  they  were  willing  to  act  as  they  were 
counselled  by  their  leaders.  At  Athens  the  people 
delighted  to  sit  all  day  in  the  theatre  listening  to 
dialogues  in  tragedies,  which  seem  to  us  now  some- 
times little  better  than  fine-spun  quibblings.  At  Rome 
the  only  plays  that  were  really  popular  were  farces 
and  pantomimes :  in  tragedies  they  cared  for  little 
but  the  splendour  of  the  dresses,  and  the  wonderful 
processions  that  were  brought  upon  the  stage ;  and 
even  in  the  middle  of  the  most  charming  comedies, 
the  audience  would  rush  off  in  a  body  to  stare  at 
rope-dancers  or  at  boxers.  The  Athenians  took  their 
pastime  in  listening  to  clever  pleadings  or  harangues 
on  the  stage,  which  reminded  them  of  their  favourite 
war  of  words  in  the  law-courts  or  the  meetings  of 


II.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DWELLINGS.  15 

the  people ;  the  Romans,  at  least  of  the  later  times, 
took  their  pleasure  in  gazing  on  the  chariot-races  of 
the  circus,  or  the  cruel  combats  of  the  trained  fighters 
(gladiators)  with  each  other  or  with  wild  beasts. 
Athens  was  proud  to  be  known  as  the  school  of 
Greece ;  and  even  in  the  days  of  its  decline  it  was 
thronged  by  visitors  from  every  land,  who  came  to 
gaze  on  its  works  of  art,  to  listen  to  its  teachers  of 
rhetoric  and  philosophy,  or  to  learn  its  wonderful 
literature  in  the  very  place  where  Plato  had  taught 
under  the  olive-trees  of  the  Academy,  or  the  crowded 
theatre  had  thrilled  to  the  tragedies  of  Sophocles. 
The  Rome  of  the  Emperors  was  even  more  the  resort 
of  strangers ;  but  they  came  only  to  bring  their  talents 
to  the  dearest  market,  and  to  push  their  fortunes  in 
the  centre  of  the  wealth  and  power  of  the  world. 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE  ROMAN'S  DWELLINGS. 

i.  Town  and  Country  life. — It  is  probable 
that  Rome  was  at  first  only  meant  for  a  trading  out- 
post ;  but  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  the 
Romans  were  chiefly  traders.  The  Roman  state, 
more  than  almost  any  state  in  history,  was  founded 
on  the  tillage  of  the  land.  The  citizens  had  each 
their  fields  and  homesteads,  and  worked  on  these  with 
their  own  hands.  If  a  citizen  had  no  farm  of  his 
own,  there  was  not  much  that  he  could  do  for  his 
living.  There  were  certain  guilds  of  craftsmen  at 
Rome  in  the  earlier  days :  flute-blowers,  goldsmiths, 
coppersmiths,  carpenters,  fullers,  dyers,  potters,  and 
shoemakers ;  and  at  that  time  these  were  not  looked 
down  upon,  as  they  were  afterwards,  when  such  crafts. 
had  fallen  almost  entirely  into  the  hands  of  slaves. 
But  they  were  shut  out,  for  the  most  part,  from  serving: 
in  the  army,  and  therefore  from  that  rank  in  the  state 
which  went  along  with  this.  There  were  no  learned 
professions,  such  as  we  have  now-a-days,  to  draw 


i6  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

people  of  birth  and  education  into  the  larger  towns ; 
the  first  doctors  and  teachers  came  at  a  later  time 
from  Greece ;  the  nobles  acted  as  lawyers  for  their 
clients  without  any  fees ;  and  the  priests,  as  we  shall 
see  hereafter,  were  not  in  the  least  like  the  clergy  of 
modern  times.  Nor  were  there  any  great  merchants, 
such  as  make  the  prosperity  of  cities  in  our  own 
day.  The  Romans  had  nothing  but  the  produce  of 
their  land  to  export;  their  country  was  not  rich  in 
minerals,  and  they  manufactured  nothing  but  such 
rude  goods  as  they  needed  for  use  at  home.  Hence 
the  only  merchants  among  them  were  the  landholders, 
who  often  had  ships  to  carry  their  corn  and  wine 
down  the  Tiber  to  Etruscan  or  Greek  towns,  especi- 
ally to  those  in  Sicily,  and  to  bring  back  works  of 
art  and  luxuries,  perfumes,  linen,  purple,  ivory  and 
frankincense. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  country  was  of  much  more 
importance  than  the  town  in  the  life  of  a  common 
Roman;  and  so  we  will  first  describe  the  Roman 
villa  or  homestead.  We  may  notice  this  in  passing 
as  another  point  of  difference  between  the  Greeks  and 
the  Romans — (See  Greek  Antiquities,  p.  12). 

2.  The  Roman  house. — The  simplest  form  of 
the  early  Roman  house  seems  to  have  been  much 
like  that  with  which  the  Greeks  too  started.  Four 
rough  wooden  walls  were  covered  with  a  pointed  roof 
of  straw  or  shingles ;  an  opening  was  left  in  the 
middle  by  which  the  smoke  could  escape ;  and  under- 
neath this  opening  a  hole  was  dug  in  the  floor  to 
gather  the  rain  which  came  in  through  it.  This  was 
at  first  the  megaron  of  Homer,  and  the  atrium — the 
blackened  chamber — of  the  Romans.  But  the  two 
nations  soon  improved  on  this  rude  shelter,  each  in 
a  different  way.  The  Greeks  began  to  build  their 
houses  in  the  form  of  a  row  of  chambers,  ranged 
round  a  central  court,  and  used  by  the  men  of  the 
family,  with  a  second  set  of  rooms  for  the  women, 
either  built  in  the  same  way  round  a  back  court, 


It] 


THE  ROMAN'S  DWELLINGS. 


or,  in  poorer  houses,  placed  upon  the  others  as  a 
second  story  (Greek  Antiquities,  p.  10).  The  Romans, 
on  the  other  hand,  never  gave  up  their  atrium,  and 
in  the  poorer  houses  added  but  little  to  it.  Of  the 
numerous  houses  which  have  been  brought  to  light 
in  digging  out  the  buried  town  of  Pompeii,1  several 
are  built  in  this  simple 
fashion.  There  is  still 
nothing  but  the  one 
large  chamber,  open  in 
the  middle  to  the  sky, 
with  one  or  two  parts 
half- walled  off,  for  eat- 
ing or  sleeping  rooms. 
The  house,  of  which  a 
ground  plan  is  given  in 
Fig.  i,  shows  us  the 
next  step  taken.  The 
atrium  (A)  is  still  the 
chief  room  inthehouse, 
but  other  rooms,  which 
open  into  it,  aremarked 
off  more  distinctly.  All 
but  one  are  closed  by 
doors,  and  there  is  a 

proper  passage  leading   GROUND-PLAN  Of  A  HOUSE  AT  POMPEII. 

from  the  street.  In  this  case  there  is  also  an  upper 
story,  but  these  are  not  always  met  with.  Now  this 
is  much  the  kind  of  house  in  which  we  may  suppose 
that  the  Romans  lived  in  the  early  days  on  their 
farms  in  the  country.  No  happy  accident  has  pre- 
served to  us  any  one  of  the  country-houses,  in  the 

1  The  town  of  Pompeii  was  one  of  those  which,  under  the 
Roman  Empire,  studded  the  beautiful  bay  of  Campania.  In 
A.D.  79  it  was  overwhelmed  by  an  eruption  of  Vesuvius,  and 
its  very  site  was  unknown  until  A.  D.  1748.  Since  that  date 
explorations  have  been  carried  on  there,  and  now  more  than 
one-third  of  the  city  has  been  brought  to  light.  By  this  means 
we  have  been  able  to  learn  far  more  about  the  life  of  the 
Romans  than  was  ever  known  before. 


i8  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

same  way  in  which  we  have  the  houses  and  shops  of 
Pompeii.  This  could  not  have  been  expected ;  a 
common  farm-house  could  not  possibly  stand  un- 
changed for  thousands  of  years.  And  the  Roman 
writers  describe  for  us,  not  the  ordinary  houses  of  the 
people,  but  the  great  and  splendid  villas  of  the  nobles, 
which  our  limits  will  not  allow  us  to  speak  of  here. 
But  nothing  that  we  know  about  the  houses  of  the 
simple  citizens  leads  us  to  fancy  them  as  different 
from  the  plan  that  has  been  given.  The  atrium,  then, 
was  the  common  room  of  the  household.  Here,  in 
the  light  that  came  in  from  the  square  hole  in  the  roof 
— the  compluvium — the  meals  were  cooked  at  the 
family  hearth ;  the  children  and  the  slaves  took  their 
meals  with  the  father  and  the  mother  of  the  house  at 
the  common  table;  the  women  sat  and  span  their 
wool ;  and  in  the  earlier  days  the  atrium  served  too 
for  the  chief  bed-chamber  of  the  house.  The  rooms 
that  were  afterwards  portioned  off  from  it  served  as 
store-closets,  as  sleeping-rooms  for  the  family,  or  as 
guest-chambers. 

The  first  important  change  which  was  made  in  this 
simple  kind  of  house  is  seen  beginning  in  the  figure 
given.  One  of  the  chambers  (e)  is  quite  open  to  the 
atrium,  and  there  is  no  door  between  them.  This 
came  in  time  to  be  a  regular  part  of  the  building : 
it  was  known  as  the  tablinum,  and  was  used  as  the 
master's  own  apartment.  Here  he  kept  his  papers 
(tabulae)  and  his  money :  here  he  could  sit  in 
quiet,  and  yet  watch  all  that  was  going  on  in  the 
house. 

A  second  addition  was  made  in  later  times,  which 
was  brought  about  by  the  influence  of  the  Greeks.  Be- 
hind the  tablinum,  and  often  joined  to  the  atrium  by 
two  narrow  passages  called  the  fauces,  a  walled  court 
or  garden  was  made.  This  was  surrounded  with  pillars ; 
and  so  from  the  Greek  word  for  a  pillar  (stylos)  it  got 
the  name  of  the  peristylium.  At  first  this  was  nothing 
but  a  garden,  used  for  pleasure,  and  sometimes,  as  it 


THE  ROMAN'S  DWELLINGS.  19 

seems,  for  profit  too,  for  garden-stuff  was  grown  in  it. 
But  in  time,  in  the  larger  houses,  this  too  was  sur- 
rounded by  chambers,  used  for  meals,  for  sleeping, 
or  for  stores.  And  then,  as  houses  grew  more  mag- 
nificent, a  second  and  a  larger  garden  was  added 
behind  this,  and  rooms  were  built  around  this  second 
peristylium  also.  But  the  usual  type  of  a  Roman 
house  in  the  later  days  of  the  Republic  was  made  up 
of  the  three  chief  parts,  which  we  have  mentioned : 
(i)  the  atrium,  with  the  rooms  which  were  round  it, 
and  the  passage  which  led  into  it  from  the  street;  (2) 
the  tablinum  in  the  middle  of  the  house,  with  the 
fauces  running  on  each  side  of  it;  (3)  the  peristylium 
at  the  back  of  all,  with  or  without  its  surrounding 
chambers.  Of  these  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  atrium  and  the  tablinum  had  nothing  answering 
to  them  in  the  Greek  houses ;  and  that  i\\Q  peristylium, 
though  brought  in  probably  by  the  architects  of 
Greece,  was  not  often  found  in  the  houses  of  that 
country. 

Fig.  2. 


L 


PLAN   OF   AN   ORDINARY   ROMAN    HOUSE. 

A  A  A  Bed-chambers  (cubicula),  or  store-rooms  (cellae,  penariat). 

Such  was  the  house  of  a  Roman   farmer  in  the 
good   old   days  of  the   Republic.      The  time  came 


20  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

when  the  sturdy  yeomen,  who  had  been  the  pride 
and  the  stay  of  Rome,  were  no  longer  to  be  found 
in  the  land.  Their  bones  were  whitening  every  battle- 
field on  which  the  empire  of  their  city  had  been 
won ;  and  their  places  were  filled  by  gangs  of  slaves, 
herded  together  in  prison-like  barracks,  and  tilling 
the  fields  in  chains  (Primer  of  Roman  History,  p.  55). 
In  the  country  there  were  only,  besides  the  slave-yards, 
the  magnificent  palaces  of  the  nobles  who  owned 
them.  We  must  go  back  again  to  the  towns  to  see 
the  ordinary  dwellings  of  the  citizens. 

3.  The  Roman  town. — A  Roman  town  must 
have  looked  on  the  whole  not  at  all  unlike  a  Greek 
town ;  for  the  same  causes  were  at  work  in  each 
case  to  bring  about  the  general  appearance.  Even 
more  than  in  Greece  the  "town"  grew  out  of  a 
fortified  place  of  refuge,  a  "  height"  (capitolium)  or 
"  stronghold "  (arx)  to  which  the  people  could  fly 
from  the  country-villages  in  time  of  danger.  Here 
were  the  temples  of  the  national  gods  and  goddesses ; 
close  beside  it  was  the  market-place  (forum),  which 
served  at  the  same  time  as  the  seat  of  justice,  and 
the  place  for  the  meetings  of  the  people ;  and  round 
this  in  time  the  houses  of  the  citizens  gathered. 
Hence  we  have  almost  always  a  central  height  crowned 
by  a  fortress,  as  strong  as  the  people  could  make  it, 
and  around  on  the  slopes  of  the  hill,  or  built  on 
the  plain  at  its  feet,  the  streets  and  the  houses  of 
the  town.  The  streets  as  a  rule  were  mean  and 
narrow ;  the  houses  were  built  of  brick,  for  the  most 
part  stuccoed  and  white-washed,  but  without  any  other 
adornment ;  the  windows  were  few  and  small,  closed 
with  shutters  or  lattices,  for  glass,  though  not  un- 
known, was  a  rare  and  expensive  luxury.  The  town 
was  surrounded  with  a  wall,  like  the  fortress :  but, 
while  the  fortress-wall  had  in  it  one  gate  only,  for  the 
sake  of  safety,  the  town-wall  had  always  three  or  four, 
and  often  more,  for  the  sake  of  convenience.  The 
outlook  from  the  citadel  was  often  very  delightful. 


II.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DWELLINGS.  21 

There  were  none  of  the  spires  and  pinnacles  which 
break  the  outlines  of  a  modern  city,  and  in  the  smaller 
towns  the  houses  had  rarely  more  than  a  single  storey. 
But  the  white-washed  houses,  as  they  shone  out 
brightly  under  an  Italian  sun,  were  brought  into  full 
elief  by  the  gardens  of  the  peri  sty  Hum  ^  and  the  faint 
blue  smoke  that  curled  up  gently  from  the  wood  fires 
in  the  atrium  furnished  a  magic  veil  very  different 
from  the  dingy  pall  that  broods  over  English  towns. 
And  then,  though  the  private  houses  were  often  mean 
and  poor,  the  eye  was  drawn  with  the  more  delight  to 
the  temples  and  the  public  buildings.  These  were  for 
the  most  part  ranged  around  the  Jorum,  the  meeting- 
place  of  the  citizens.  We  may  take  Pompeii  as  an 
instance  of  a  town  of  no  great  size.  In  the  principal 
forum  we  find  a  temple  of  Jupiter  at  the  one  end, 
faced  at  the  other  by  a  building  which  seems  to  have 
been  the  treasury  of  the  town,  and  also  to  have  held 
some  rooms  for  the  meetings  of  magistrates.  On  the 
one  side  of  the  Forum  was  what  was  called  the 
Basilica.  This  was  the  Hall  of  Justice,  a  splendid 
building  supported  by  twenty-eight  large  columns,  and 
having  at  the  end  opposite  the  door-way  the  raised 
tribunal,  from  which  the  magistrate  listened  to  causes. 
Next  came  a  magnificent  temple  of  Venus,  the  patron 
goddess  of  the  city,  rising  aloft  on  an  elevated  base- 
ment, and  surrounded  by  forty-eight  columns,  brightly 
painted.  Then  came  a  colonnade  (porticus)  adorned 
with  paintings,  which  served  as  a  place  of  public  resort 
and  gossip.  It  faced  the  east,  and  so  it  was  cool  in  the 
afternoon,  and  was  a  pleasant  place  in  which  to  stroll 
and  talk  in  quiet  while  looking  out  at  the  bustling 
life  of  the  Forum.  Close  by  the  side  of  this  was  a 
low  vaulted  building  with  several  dungeons,  used  for 
the  prison  of  the  town.  On  the  other  side  of  the 
Forum,  to  the  left  of  the  temple  of  Jupiter,  was  a 
temple  of  larger  size,  supposed  to  be  that  of  Augustus; 
then  came  the  council-house,  and  next  to  this  another 
temple,  sacred  to  Mercury,  or  perhaps  to  Quirinus 


22  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

The  remainder  of  this  side  was  almost  wholly  filled 
with  a  splendid  building,  the  gift  of  Eumachia,  a 
priestess  of  Ceres,  to  the  town  of  Pompeii.  The 
purpose  of  it  is  not  quite  clear,  but  it  seems  to  have 
been  a  kind  of  exchange,  perhaps  for  the  fullers  in 
particular,  for  these  set  up  in  it  a  statue  of  the 
priestess.  Round  the  whole  of  the  forum  ran  a  high 
two-storied  row  of  columns,  except  where  the  front  of 
a  temple  broke  the  line,  and  all  the  columns  were  of 
white  Corinthian  marble.  It  does  not  need  much 
fancy  to  picture  to  ourselves  how  splendid  the  sight 
must  have  been  in  the  early  morning,  when  the  forum 
was  filled  with  a  bustling  crowd,  not  yet  banished 
to  the  shade  by  the  glow  of  the  noonday  sun. 

4.  The  city  of  Rome. — The  city  of  Rome  did 
not  differ  at  first  from  other  Latin  towns,  although  it 
much  outgrew  them.  If  anything,  its  streets  were 
narrower  and  more  irregular :  according  to  the  story 
that  was  commonly  believed,  after  the  Gauls  had 
destroyed  the  city,  the  people  rebuilt  their  houses  how 
and  where  they  pleased,  so  that  there  was  no  kind  of 
order  or  regularity.  Of  the  seven  hills  on  which  it 
was  built,  that  one  which  was  steepest  and  stood  most 
apart  from  the  rest,  the  Capitoline,  was  always  kept  to 
its  ancient  use :  on  the  one  of  its  crests  rose  the  great 
temple  sacred  to  Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Minerva ;  on  the 
other  was  the  Arx  or  the  citadel.  The  Palatine 
mount,  where  the  earlier  settlement  of  the  Latins  had 
been  made,  became  in  later  days  the  favourite  site  for 
the  great  town-houses  of  the  noble  Romans ;  but  the 
rest  of  the  hills  and  the  low-lying  land  between  them 
were  crowded  with  the  dwellings  of  the  poorer  citizens. 
As  land  became  more  costly,  and  the  population  of 
the  city  increased,  storey  after  storey  was  added  to  the 
height  of  the  houses.  In  Rome,  just  as  in  the  Old 
Town  of  Edinburgh,  many  of  the  houses  were  built  on 
the  slopes  of  the  hills,  so  that  the  front  of  the  house 
appeared  to  rise  to  a  towering  height,  while  the  back 
of  it  consisted  perhaps  of  only  three  or  four  storeys. 


II.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DWELLINGS.  23 

The  upper  storeys  were  built  for  the  most  part  of 
wood,  and  were  often  frail  enough.  Sometimes  they 
projected  one  above  the  other,  and  overhung  the 
street,  like  the  houses  in  our  own  old  English  towns. 
This  gave  to  the  streets  a  grateful  coolness,  though  it 
made  them  dark  and  narrow.  The  upper  rooms  were 
usually  let  out  as  lodgings  (cenacula),  and  lodging  in 


PLAN  OF   ROME. 

a  garret  was  no  more  to  be  desired  at  Rome  than  it 
would  be  among  ourselves.  We  hear  of  one  poor 
poet  under  the  Emperors  living  at  the  top  of  200 
stairs  ;  and  this  is  not  spoken  of  as  anything  very 
uncommon.  The  danger  from  fire  was  great  °o  the 
inhabitants;  but  those  who  passed  along  the  streets 


24  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

ran  not  less  risk  from  the  broken  crockery  and  rubbish 
that  was  recklessly  thrown  from  the  windows.  Only 
two  large  open  spaces  broke  the  mass  of  the  clustering 
houses.  In  the  heart  of  the  city,  between  the  Palatine 
Mount  and  the  Capitol,  lay  the  meeting-place  of  the 
citizens,  and  the  centre  of  the  city's  life,  the  Forum 
Romanum.  There  was  the  shrine  of  Vesta,  with  the 
altar  on  which  the  sacred  fire  was  always  kept  burning 
by  the  Holy  Maidens.  Close  by  was  the  dwelling  of 
the  chief  pontiff,  the  Regia  or  Palace — where  Julius 
Cffisar  lived.  Around  it,  in  the  time  of  Caesar,  were 
two  large  basilicas.  These  were  buildings  of  interest 
to  us,  as  giving  the  models  for  our  Christian  churches, 
for  which  indeed  they  were  often  used  after  the  Empire 
became  Christian.  The  temples  of  the  Pagan  gods 
were,  as  we  shall  see  afterwards  (p.  115),  by  no  means 
fit  for  Christian  congregations,  even  if  they  had  not 
been  thought  to  have  been  unhallowed  from  their 
earlier  uses.  But  the  basilica  was  built  to  hold  a 
number  of  persons.  It  had  a  central  nave  divided  by 
pillars  from  two  side  aisles,  over  which  there  were 
usually  galleries.  At  one  or  at  both  ends  there  was  a 
circular  arched  recess,  called  an  apse,  in  which  was  a 
tribunal  for  the  judge  in  trials.  But  the  body  of  the 
building  was  used  as  a  lounge  for  idlers,  or  a  place  of 
meeting  for  business  men.  just  as  old  St.  Paul's  was  in 
the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth.  Besides 
these  buildings,  there  was  in  the  Forum  the  Senate- 
House,  and  a  famous  temple  of  Castor  and  Pollux; 
and  at  that  end  of  the  Forum  which  was  close  under 
tiie  Capitol  there  were  ancient  temples  to  Saturn  and 
to  Concord,  with  the  public  offices  close  beside. 
The  Forum  itself  was  filled  with  arches,  with  columns 
and  with  statues ;  and  just  in  front  of  the  Senate-House 
was  the  famous  Rostra,  a  platform  adorned  with  the 
beaks  of  captured  war-ships,  from  which  the  Roman 
orators  addressed  the  assembled  citizens. 

The  second  of  the  open  spaces,  which  caught  the 
eye  of  one  who  looked  over  the  city  from  the  Capitol, 


I!.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DWELLINGS.  25 

lay  between  the  Palatine  Mount  and  the  Aventine. 
This  was  the  Circus  Maximus,  a  place  set  apart  from 
the  earliest  days  of  the  city  for  the  sports  and  races,  of 
which  the  Romans  were  always  so  fond  (p.  96). 

A  third  great  open  space  of  Rome  lay  to  the  north- 
west of  the  Capitol,  and  stretched  away  to  the  river, 
which  here  took  a  bend,  as  if  to  enclose  it.  This  was 
the  famous  Plain  of  Mars,  or  Campus  Martius.  It 
was  outside  the  walls  of  the  ancient  city,  although 
it  is  now  the  most  populous  part  of  modern  Rome. 
An  ancient  legend  told  how  the  corn-fields  of  the 
Tarquins  had  covered  it  once ;  and  how,  when  the 
tyrants  were  expelled,  their  crops  were  cut  down  by 
the  people  and  flung  into  the  river  as  accursed,  while 
the  land  was  hallowed  to  Mars,  and  given  over  as  a 
place  for  the  exercises  of  the  soldiers  and  the  games 
of  the  citizens.  Under  the  Republic  no  buildings 
stood  there,  save  one  or  two  temples ;  and  the  only 
serious  business  done  was  when  the  people  were  sum- 
moned to  meet  in  their  military  order  (Comitia  Cen- 
tunata)  to  elect  their  magistrates,  to  pass  their  laws, 
and  to  vote  upon  peace  or  war.  But  the  Emperors 
built  on  it  several  of  their  finest  structures ;  and  in 
later  times,  when  the  Popes  had  taken  up  their  abode 
on  the  Vatican  hill,  the  population  was  drawn  in  that 
direction,  and  a  dense  mass  of  houses  covered  what 
had  been  the  recreation  ground  of  the  citizens. 

With  these  exceptions,  we  must  fancy  to  ourselves 
the  city  of  Rome  in  the  days  of  Csesar  as  a  network  of 
crooked  narrow  alleys.  Two  roads  (viae)  only  were 
fit  for  the  passage  of  heavy  carriages.  In  the  other 
streets  the  litters  of  the  wealthy  struggled  to  force 
their  way  through  the  thronging  crowds  of  the  loun- 
gers, who  delighted,  as  they  do  to  this  day  in  the 
cities  of  the  South,  to  gossip  from  morning  to  night  in 
the  open  air,  under  the  shade  of  the  towering  houses. 
The  shops  were  poor  and  mean :  and  so  the  streets 
were  crowded  with  peddlers  and  hucksters  of  every 
kind.  Martial  tells  us  of  the  bawling  fellows  who 


26  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

came  from  the  low  and  dirty  regions  across  the  Tiber 
to  barter  sulphur  matches  for  broken  glass  and  crock- 
ery, to  sell  boiled  peas  to  the  mob  of  loungers,  to 
carry  round  hot  tripe  from  the  reeking  cook-shops,  or 
to  show  the  venomous  snakes  which  they  professed  to 
have  charmed.  And,  of  all  the  terrors  of  a  town  life, 
one  of  the  worst  was  the  constant  din  which  rose  from 
.  the  cries  of  these  and  the  like. 

V  5.  Furniture  of  the  house. — We  have  seen  the 
general  style  of  house-building,  and  the  look  of  a 
Roman  town.  Let  us  now  enter  a  Roman  house,  and 
try  to  picture  to  ourselves  how  it  appeared  within. 
We  will  take  as  an  example  a  house  of  an  ordinary 
middle-class  citizen,  remembering  all  the  time  that  if 
there  were  some  great  palaces  far  more  magnificent, 
there  were  many  more  dwellings  of  a  plainer  and 
humbler  character.  The  first  thing  that  would  strike 
us  as  we  pushed  back  the  folding  doors  (fores)  would 
be  the  very  great  contrast  between  the  general  appear- 
ance of  the  outside  and  the  inside  of  the  house.  To 
the  Roman  as  much  as  to  the  Greek  the  house  was 
intended  to  be  lived  in  and  not  to  be  looked  at  from 
without.  Hence  the  outside  as  a  rule  was  extremely 
plain  and  bare.  We  cannot  feel  very  sure  of  the  look 
of  the  front  of  a  house,  because,  unfortunately,  in 
almost  all  the  houses  in  Pompeii  the  upper  storeys 
have  been  destroyed  entirely.  But  in  the  house  newly 
discovered  on  the  Palatine,  and  called  "  The  House 
of  Livia,"  there  is  a  fresco  which  gives  the  picture  of  a 
Roman  street,  just  like  that  of  an  Eastern  town  now-a- 
days,  with  blank  walls,  only  broken  by  a  few  casements 
high  up  and  plain  doorways.  We  have  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  the  house  was  adorned  outside  with 
any  but  the  simplest  decorations.  Inside  the  case  was 
different.  Even  in  the  poorer  houses  the  walls  were 
brightly  coloured,  and  adorned  with  fresco-paintings, 
some  of  which  have  been  preserved  to  us  in  almost 
all  their  original  freshness.  Sometimes  these  paintings 
are  not  much  more  than  decorative  scrolls  and 


THE  ROMAN'S  DWELLINGS.  27 

flourishes,  but  more  often  they  are  pictures  full  of 
interest,  as  bringing  before  us  scenes  of  daily  life. 
We  see  on  the  walls  in  one  place  the  inside  of  a 
fuller's  workshop,  in  another  a  bread-seller  of  the 
market-place,  with  his  goods  before  him  on  a  little 
table,  in  another  a  farm-yard  scene,  in  another  a  ban- 
quet. From  these  we  can  learn  almost  as  well  as 
from  the  remains  themselves,  how  the  Romans  lived. 
Unfortunately  the  greater  number  of  the  paintings  have 
as  their  subjects  the  stories  of  the  Greek  mythology, 
and  these  are  valuable  rather  for  the  history  of  art 
than  as  throwing  light  on  the  state  of  the  people. 
The  floor  in  the  poorer  houses  was  made  of  beaten 
clay,  mixed  with  pot-sherds;  but  in  all  the  better 
dwellings  it  was  of  large  marble  slabs,  or  else  of 
mosaic  work.  In  the  latter  case  little  pieces  of 
marble,  of  precious  stone,  or  of  glass,  were  fitted 
together  in  a  bed  of  plaster,  so  as  to  form,  geometrical 
patterns,  or  sometimes  elaborate  pictures.  A  splendid 
specimen  of  this  kind  has  been  found  at  Pompeii, 
depicting  the  battle  of  Alexander  with  Darius  at  Issus. 
It  is  sixteen  feet  in  length,  and  eight  in  breadth,  but, 
in  spite  of  its  size,  it  is  wrought  with  such  wonderful 
minuteness  of  detail  that  150  separate  pieces  are  con- 
tained in  each  square  inch.  The  vigour  of  the 
drawing,  the  brightness  of  the  colouring,  the  power 
and  skill  of  the  grouping,  unite  to  make  this  one  of 
the  most  admirable  works  of  art  that  has  come  down 
to  us.  Mosaics  of  this  splendid  kind  are  rare,  but  in 
almost  every  house  discovered  in  Pompeii  there  is 
something  of  the  sort.  It  is  common  to  find  at  the 
entrance  of  the  house  some  word  of  greeting  (salve) 
set  in  the  floor  to  welcome  the  visitor :  in  one  case  we 
have  the  less  cheerful  motto  Cave  Canem  (take  care 
of  the  dog),  written  under  a  mosaic  picture  of  a 
chained  watch-dog,  that  looks  fierce  enough  to  scare 
away  any  intruder. 

On  entering  the  atrium  little  if  any  furniture  would 
be  seen.      According  to  the  ancient   custom,  there 
;>* 


ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES. 


[CHAP. 


II.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DWELLINGS.  29 

would  be  the  altar  of  the  Lares  (p.  114)  mirrored  in 
the  water  of  the  impluvium,  but  it  was  only  retained 
as  a  form,  and  the  altar  for  sacrifice  was  usually  within. 
But  round  the  wall  would  be  the  statues,  either  of 
gods  and  heroes,  or  of  the  family  ancestors,  and  out 
of  the  open  presses  (armaria)  on  the  walls  looked 
out  the  grim  and  discoloured  masks  (imagines),  which 
reproduced  the  features  of  those  of  the  family  who 
had  held  high  office  in  their  day  (p.  79).  For  the 
furniture  we  must  lift  the  curtains  which  veiled  the 
door-ways,  and  enter  the  smaller  living-rooms  which 
were  on  either  side  of  the  atrium.  Let  us  first  take 
the  triclinium  or  dining-room.  This  was  an  addition 
of  the  later  times.  At  first,  as  we  have  seen  before, 
the  family  table  was  spread  in  public  (in  propatulo) 
in  the  atrium ;  here  sat  the  husband  and  wife,  with  the 
children  at  the  foot  of  the  couch,  or  else  at  a  table 
of  their  own,  and  the  slaves  or  humble  dependents 
on  benches  near,  eating  whatever  was  handed  to 
them.  But  afterwards  it  came  to  be  the  custom  for 
the  husband  and  his  guest  to  recline  on  the  couches, 
after  the  later  fashion  of  the  Greeks.  This  the  women 
never  did,  any  more  than  in  Greece  (Greek  Antiquities, 
p.  73),  except  in  rare  or  disreputable  cases.  And 
now  rooms  were  set  apart  for  meals ;  these  were  rarely 
large,  for  it  was  not  the  fashion  to  give  great  dinner- 
parties ;  but  in  the  wealthier  houses  there  were  often 
different  dining-rooms  for  the  various  seasons  of  the 
year.  The  table  was  usually  square,  surrounded  on 
three  of  its  sides  with  couches  (lecti),  in  Greek  called 
klinai,  so  that  the  table  itself,  and  afterwards  the 
room  in  which  it  was  placed,  got  the  name  triclinium. 
The  Icctus  was  made  to  hold  three  guests;  it  was 
most  often  a  wooden  framework  with  bands  of  webbing 
across  it,  and  resting  on  handsome  legs.  In  the 
houses  of  the  wealthy  the  wood  was  inlaid  with  ivory 
or  precious  metals,  and  sometimes  bronze,  gracefully 
worked,  was  used  in  place  of  it.  On  these  frames 
were  laid  mattresses  (tori)  stuffed  with  wool  or  feathers, 


30  ROM  Ah  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

and  for  each  of  the  places  a  cushion  (pulvinus),  on 
which  the  left  elbow  was  rested  as  the  guests  reclined 
at  table.  Over  the  couches  were  spread  coverlets 
(vestes  stragulae),  dyed  with  Tyrian  purple  by  those 
who  could  afford  it.  In  the  later  days  of  the  Re- 
public round  tables  came  into  fashion,  so  that  the 
couches  were  ranged  about  them  in  the  form  of  the 
letter  C ;  and  these  tables  were  often  made  of  slabs 
of  the  rarest  woods,  resting  either  on  three  legs  beauti- 
fully carved,  or  on  one  central  pillar.  Cicero  was 
never  a  very  wealthy  man ;  but  even  he  is  said  to 
have  given  more  than  ^5,000  for  one  of  these 
tables ;  and  higher  prices  than  this  are  mentioned 
by  historians.  Besides  the  triclinium,  or  dinner-table, 
we  might  have  seen  in  the  room  several  tripods,  on 
which  to  stand  vessels  or  dishes,  or  sometimes  only 
vases  for  ornament ;  of  these  there  are  many  charming 
specimens  rescued  from  the  ruins  of  Pompeii.  But 
what  perhaps  would  have  struck  us  more  than  any- 
thing would  have  been  the  wonderful  variety  and 
beauty  of  the  lamps,  and  the  stands  on  which  they 
were  placed.  Most  of  those  found  at  Pompeii  were 
of  bronze,  but  one  large  one  recently  discovered  is 
all  of  gold :  one  and  all  they  show  the  greatest  grace 
and  delicate  finish  of  workmanship.  We  can  hardly 
fancy,  however,  that  their  usefulness  was  equal  to 
their  beauty,  for  the  wick  was  nothing  but  a  few 
loosely-twisted  threads,  drawn  through  a  hole  in  the 
top  of  the  vessel  which  held  the  oil,  and  no  glass 
was  in  use  to  keep  the  flame  steady,  and  to  screen 
it  from  puffs  of  wind  Of  chairs,  though  rarely  used 
in  the  dining-room,  there  was  certainly  no  lack  in 
the  other  rooms  of  the  house.  We  have  specimens  of 
these  in  abundance  in  the  wall-paintings  of  Pompeii, 
and  in  sculptures  elsewhere ;  it  is  only  those  which 
were  made  of  metal  and  stone  which  have  come 
down  to  us,  for  the  wooden  chairs  and  stools  of  the 
Pompeian  houses,  like  all  other  objects  of  wood,  have 
long  since  crumbled  into  ashes.  The  simplest  form 


II.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DWELLINGS.  31 

is  the  seat  without  the  back,  bvit  with  four  perpen- 
dicular legs  :  this  was  the  kind  most  commonly  in 
use  in  the  ruder  early  ages.  Then  there  is  the 
folding-stool  with  crossed  legs ;  one  form  of  this,  in 
which  the  legs  were  curved  as  well  as  crossed,  and  in 
which  the  framework  was  plated  with  ivory,  is  the 
famous  sella  curulis  (the  chariot  seat),  granted  only 
to  the  higher  magistrates.  The  graceful  and  com- 
fortable chair,  with  wide  round  back  and  loose  stuffed 
cushions,  was  of  Greek  name  (cathedra)  and  origin; 
its  use  was  properly  confined  to  the  women's  apart- 
ments, and  only  in  later  days  did  the  luxurious  venture 
to  induge  in  it  generally.  Lastly,  there  was  the  true 
old  Roman  equivalent  for  the  '"'grandfather's  chair" 
of  the  English  chimney-corner,  the  stout  and  massive 
solium,  high-backed,  and  sometimes  richly  carved, 
with  two  solid  elbows,  and  often  a  footstool  fastened 
to  it.  One  of  these  we  may  fancy,  according  to 
ancient  custom,  standing  in  the  atrium;  for  it  was 
always  on  a  seat  of  this  kind  that  the  pater  familias 
sat  when  he  received  the  morning  visits  of  his  clients 
(P-  S3)-  In  the  days  of  Cicero  and  Horace  it  had 
become  the  custom  to  use  a  kind  of  sofa  (lectus 
lucubratorius)  to  recline  upon  while  reading  or  writing 
on  tablets  :  this  does  not  seem  to  have  differed  much 
in  form  from  the  couches  round  the  dining-table. 
The  beds  in  the  sleeping-chambers  appear  to  have 
been  often  alcoves,  built  in  the  walls,  on  which  the 
mattresses  and  pillows  were  laid ;  but  careful  casts, 
taken  from  the  mud  which  had  hardened  around  the 
frames,  before  they  were  charred  into  ashes,  show  us 
still  the  form  of  some  wooden  bedsteads  not  unlike 
our  own.  In  one  case  we  have  even  a  folding-screen, 
which  appears  to  have  belonged  to  a  bed-room,  pre- 
served to  us  in  outline  by  the  same  skilful  process. 
It  must  always  be  remembered  that  everything  we  know 
of  the  furniture  of  the  Romans  comes  to  us  from  a 
time  when  the  Greeks  had  long  been  teaching  their 
art  to  the  people  of  Italy,  as  they  have  been  doing 


32  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

since  to  every  civilized  nation.  Therefore  we  can 
say  little  or  nothing  of  the  furniture  of  the  early 
Roman  home;  except  that  there  is  reason  to  think 
of  it  as  extremely  plain  and  simple.  It  is  Greek 
forms  and  fashions,  Greek  designs,  and  Greek  skill 
in  workmanship,  which  are  known  to  us  from  the 
relics  of  Pompeii.  But  this  does  not  matter  so  much, 
because  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  houses 
of  Cicero  or  Csesar  were  any  the  less  indebted  to 
the  taste  and  the  handicraft  of  Greece,  than  those 
which  now  lie  open  to  our  view  on  the  Bay  of  Naples. 
One  thing  more  seems  certain,  that  the  furniture  of 
a  Roman  house  was  much  more  scanty  than  that  of 
our  own.  If  we  add  to  the  articles  already  spoken 
of  a  few  chests  (armaria)  here  and  there,  we  have 
come  to  the  end  of  the  "plenishing"  of  a  Roman 
household;  and  just  as  in  Greece  ( Greek  Antiquities, 
p.  17)  the  furniture  does  not  appear  to  have  formed 
any  large  part  of  the  possessions  of  a  family. 

CHAPTER  III. 
THE  ROMAN'S  DAILY  LIFE. 

i.  Town  and  country  life. — But  now  that  we 
have  seen  something  of  the  Roman's  house,  let  us  try 
to  follow  him  through  the  business  and  the  pleasures 
of  the  day.  The  life  of  the  early  time  in  the  country 
hardly  needs  description.  The  farmer  would  rise  with 
the  sun,  offer  his  morning  sacrifice,  and  take  his 
simple  breakfast ;  then  he  would  go  into  his  fields  till 
the  noon-tide  heat  warned  him  to  return  to  his  dinner 
and  his  siesta ;  and  after  his  rest  he  would  work  again 
till  sunset  summoned  him  to  supper  and  an  early 
sleep.  This  regular  round  of  work  was  only  broken 
by  family  holidays,  and  by  the  feasts  of  the  gods,  or  at 
times  by  a  visit  to  the  nearest  market-town  on  one  of 
the  fair-days  (nundinae),  held  four  times  every  month, 
to  sell  the  produce  of  the  farm,  and  to  buy  the  few 
things  needed  for  the  house  which  were  not  made  at 


in.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DAILY  LIFE.  33 

home.  But  the  town-life,  especially  in  the  later  days 
of  the  Republic  and  under  the  Empire,  was  much 
more  varied,  if  not  more  busy.  Here  our  choice  must 
lie  between  the  life  of  one  of  the  upper  class  and  that 
of  the  client  or  the  slave ;  for  the  middle  class  did  not 
exist.  The  population  of  Rome  tended  ever  more 
and  more  to  part  itself  off  into  two  layers.  The  upper 
stratum  was  formed  in  part  of  the  members  of  the  old 
Roman  families — patrician  and  plebeian  alike — who 
had  been  ennobled  by  centuries  of  office  and  enriched 
by  the  plunder  of  the  provinces ;  but  even  in  greater 
measure  of  "new  men,"  often  the  freedmen  of  the 
emperors  or  the  nobles,  who  had  pushed  their  way  to 
wealth  and  favour  by  every  kind  of  meanness  and 
trickery.  Below  them  were  the  mass  of  the  people, 
living  for  the  most  part  on  the  free  distributions  of 
corn  by  the  state,  or  on  the  bounty  of  their  patrons, 
and  asking  for  little  but  "  bread  and  the  games  of  the 
circus." 

2.  The  morning  call. — Let  us  enter,  then,  one 
of  the  palaces  that  crown  the  Palatine  or  the  Esquiline, 
and  watch  how  its  master  spends  his  day.  The  sun 
has  not  yet  risen,  but  even  before  cock-crow  the  vesti- 
bule is  crowded  with  throngs  of  clients  who  have  come 
to  pay  their  morning  call  to  their  patron.  They  are 
dressed  in  the  national  toga  (p.  73),  a  cumbrous  garb, 
but  one  which  is  indispensable  for  any  visit  of  cere- 
mony, like  the  academical  cap  and  gown  in  the 
colleges  of  our  old  universities.  The  steward  enters 
the  crowd  and  scans  the  faces  carefully,  that  no 
unlicensed  intruder  may  share  in  the  bounty.  Then 
comes  the  train  of  slaves  bearing  the  morning's  dole 
(sportula).  This  is  the  ungracious  custom  which  has 
taken  the  place  of  the  kindly  hospitality  of  earlier  and 
better  days.  Once,  as  in  our  own  baronial  castles,  the 
poor  dependent  was  welcomed  to  the  patron's  board, 
where  he  had  his  regular  place,  even  though  that  was 
a  humble  one.  Now  it  is  much  if,  after  a  long  day's 
patient  attendance,  he  is  honoured  at  last  with  a 


34  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

churlish  summons  to  the  evening  meal.  In  the  place 
of  this  he  comes  now  with  his  basket — sometimes  at 
the  hour  of  dinner,  but  more  often  at  the  morning 
call — to  fetch  away  such  food  as  the  steward  chooses 
to  give  him.  Sometimes  this  is  bread  and  wine ;  at 
other  times  hot  meats  appear  to  have  been  added — 
perhaps  the  warmed-up  fragments  of  the  yesterday's 
dinner — for  we  read  of  the  portable  ovens  which  the 
clients  had  brought  by  slaves,  to  keep  their  victuals 
warm.  In  some  houses  even  the  semblance  of  a  meal 
is  discarded,  and  each  one  of  the  visitors  receives  a 
sum  little  more  than  a  shilling  (25  asses)  to  buy  his 
dinner  for  himself.  But  now  the  doors  of  the  atrium 
are  opened,  and  the  clients  hurry  in  to  greet  their 
patron.  If  he  is  one  of  the  olden  school  he  meets 
them  with  outstretched  hand,  and  embraces  each  in 
turn ;  but  the  pride  of  the  new-blown  upstart  too 
often  barely  deigns  to  return  an  answer  to  the  humble 
salutation,  "  Hail,  master  ! "  (Ave,  doini/ie),,  as  he 
turns  to  the  slave  who  attends  him  (jiomendator)  to 
ask  the  name  of  his  visitor.  When  once  the  greeting 
is  exchanged,  many  of  the  clients  hurry  off  to  pay 
their  call  at  another  mansion :  others  remain  to  ask 
for  help  in  business  or  advice  in  legal  matters,  or  to 
learn  their  patron's  wishes  and  plans  for  the  day.  So 
pass  the  first  two  hours  of  the  day,  unless  some  special 
duty  of  courtesy  to  a  friend  (officium)  calls  the  master 
off  more  early  than  usual.  If  he  should  be  ill,  or 
indisposed  for  company,  the  doors  of  the  atrium  are 
closed ;  and  the  evil  news  runs  quickly  through  the 
grumbling  crowd  that  there  will  be  no  dole  that  day. 

3.  Divisions  of  the  day. — Here  we  may  stop  to 
notice  that  the  Romans  had  two  different  ways  of 
dividing  the  day.  The  formal  or  civil  day  began, 
like  ours,  with  midnight,  and  was  marked  out  into  24 
hours;  but  the  natural  day,  according  to  which  they 
reckoned  in  common  life,  began  with  sunrise  and 
ended  with  sunset,  and  was  divided  into  twelve  hours 
of  equal  length,  which  were  counted  from  sunrise. 


III.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DAILY  LIFE.  35 

But  in  Rome  a  day  in  midwinter  is  barely  nine  hours 
long,  while  at  midsummer  it  is  slightly  more  than 
fifteen  hours.  Hence  an  "hour"  of  winter  was  not 
quite  three  quarters  of  an  hour  in  length,  while  a 
midsummer  hour  was  a  little  more  than  an  hour  and  a 
quarter.  The  seventh  hour  always  began  at  noon,  but 
the  second  hour  in  June  began  at  about  5.45  a.m.,  and 
in  December  at  about  8.15  a.m. 

4.  The  day's  business. — At  the  third  hour  of 
the  morning  the  business  of  the  day  began.  But 
before  this  it  was  often  the  custom  to  take  a  slight 
meal  (ientaculum),  answering  rather  to  the  early 
coffee  and  roll  of  the  French  than  to  our  own  English 
breakfast.  It  consisted  only  of  bread,  either  dipped  in 
wine,  or  taken  with  some  slight  relish,  such  as  honey, 
dates,  olives,  or  cheese.  We  read  in  Martial  how 
boys  on  their  way  to  morning  school  bought  as  their 
ientaculum  a  kind  of  short-cake  at  the  baker's.  After 
this  light^ refreshment  the  master  of  the  house  goes  out 
with  his  train  of  clients  attending  him.  If  he  has  any 
engagement  in  th^e  law-courts,  either  on  his  own 
account  or  as  an  advocate  for  others,  now  is  the  time 
to  appear  there,  to  plead  his  cause,  and  to  receive  the 
cheers  of  his  clients  for  his  eloquence.  If  he  is  free 
from  business,  he  may  go  and  call  upon  a  friend,  to 
enquire  after  the  health  of  one  who  is  sick,  to  learn 
news  of  one  who  is  absent,  or  to  pay  his  court  to 
some  wealthy  widow,  from  whom  he  hopes  for  a 
legacy.  Perhaps  it  is  his  duty  to  appear  at  a  betrothal 
or  a  wedding,  to  witness  the  signing  of  a  will,  to 
accompany  the  son  of  a  friend  to  the  forum  for  the 
ceremony  of  assuming  the  dress  of  manhood  (p.  74), 
or  to  attend  some  kinsman  on  his  canvass.  In  any 
case  his  clients  are  expected  to  struggle  along  after 
the  litter,  in  which  he  rides  at  ease  borne  by  six  tall 
slaves,  up  hill  and  down  hill,  through  the  pushing 
crowds,  and  all  the  filth  of  the  ill-paved,  ill-kept 
streets.  Often  they  are  not  dismissed  before  the  tenth 
hour  of  the  day,  hoping  in  vain  for  an  invitation  to  the 


36  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

dinner-table,  and  ill-content  with  the  shilling  dole, 
which  is  given  to  them  in  place  of  it.  But,  if  the 
patron  is  somewhat  more  given  to  ease  and  quiet,  he 
will  return  to  his  house  by  noon,  the  hour  which  was 
often  regarded  as  the  natural  limit  to  business.  Then, 
if  he  has  not  done  so  earlier,  he  takes  the  first  sub- 
stantial meal  of  the  day,  the  prandium  or  dejeuner 
a  la  fourchette.  In  the  older  times  it  had  been  the 
custom  to  make  of  the  cena  the  mid-day  meal,  the 
prandium  being  really  a  breakfast;  but  the  hour  for 
the  cena  came  by  degrees  to  be  later,  just  as  has  been 
the  case  in  our  own  land,  where  Queen  Elizabeth 
dined  at  noon,  or  even  earlier,  and  as  it  was  also  in 
Athens  (Greek  Antiquities,  p.  28).  And  so  the  pran- 
dium, like  the  Greek  apio-rov  or  the  French  dejeuner, 
came  to  be  a  break  in  the  work  of  the  morning,  and 
not  a  meal  taken  before  it  began.  It  consisted  of 
dishes  of  meat,  hot  and  cold,  fish,  vegetables,  fruit, 
bread,  and  wine. 

5.  The  siesta. — After  \heprandium  came  the  mid- 
day rest  (meridiatio)  or  siesta.  This  was  not  quite 
so  universal  in  Rome  as  it  was  in  Athens,  or  as  it  now 
is  in  modern  Italy.  There  in  summer  the  shops  and 
even  the  churches  are  shut ;  no  one  ventures  out ;  and 
the  stillness  at  noon  is  greater  than  at  midnight.  But 
in  Rome  the  legal  business,  the  sittings  of  the  courts, 
the  meetings  of  the  people  and  the  senate,  went  on 
without  a  break.  Cicero  tells  us  that  it  was  only 
after  he  had  given  up  his  daily  toil  in  the  forum 
that  he  was  able  to  take  a  midday  rest.  Perhaps  in  the 
earlier  days  this  was  one  of  the  many  points  on  which 
the  customs  of  the  country  differed  from  those  of  the 
town ;  we  can  hardly  believe  that  work  went  on  in 
the  fields  at  noonday  under  an  Italian  sun  in  August ; 
•but  in  the  towns  we  find  no  trace  of  the  custom 
till  the  later  days  of  the  Republic;  and  then  it  is 
put  down  to  the  growth  of  foreign  habits  of  ease  and 
idleness.  In  time  it  became  universal.  Tacitus  tells 
us  a  story  how  in  a  Roman  town  of  Africa  a  man 


III.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DAILY  LIFE.  37 

of  humble  birth  was  walking  "  in  the  middle  of  the 
day  through  the  deserted  colonnades,"  when  he  saw 
a  spectral  figure  of  more  than  human  size,  which 
promised  him  high  honours  in  the  future :  he  puts 
his  ghost-story  at  midday,  as  naturally  as  we  might 
at  midnight.  Rome  itself  too  was  taken  by  Alaric 
the  Goth  at  a  time  when  its  garrison  were  said  to 
have  been  sunk  in  their  midday  sleep. 

6.  Games  and  exercises. — After  the  siesta  fol- 
lows, as  a  matter  of  course,  the  daily  exercise.  The 
young  would  take  this  in  the  form  of  military  sports 
in  the  Campus  Martius,  running,  leaping,  wrestling, 
fencing,  and  the  like  :  but  even  the  old  could  not 
neglect  it  without  the  charge  of  indolence.  For  these 
the  favourite  amusement  was,  as  it  is  to  the  present  day 
in  Italy,  the  game  of  ball.  In  every  wealthy  house 
there  was  a  ball-room  (sphaeristerium),  gener- 
ally close  to  the  baths;  and  the  great  public  baths, 
of  which  we  shall  have  to  speak  immediately,  pro- 
vided places  of  the  same  kind  for  the  poorer  citizens. 
The  players  stripped  for  the  game,  even  removing 
their  shoes ;  and  in  winter-time  the  room  was  heated 
to  avoid  a  chill  while  playing.  Three  kinds  of  ball 
seem  to  have  been  in  use.  The  largest,  but  lightest, 
was  the  follis,  which  was  filled  with  air,  like  our 
football,  and  struck  with  the  hand  or  arm,  sometimes 
provided  with  a  glove.  The  game  played  with  this 
seems  to  have  been  a  quiet  one,  and  looked  upon 
as  proper  only  for  old  gentlemen  and  children;  at 
one  time  Augustus  was  fond  of  it.  The  ball  next 
in  size  was  the  paganica,  but  we  do  not  know  why 
it  was  called  so,  nor  how  it  was  especially  used.  The 
last  kind  was  the  pila,  a  small  ball,  stuffed  with 
feathers,  and  used  in  many  different  games.  The 
descriptions  of  these  are  not  always  clear,  but  we 
can  see  that  the  favourite  game,  the  trigon,  must  have 
answered  pretty  nearly  to  our  catch-ball,  seemingly 
with  six  balls  going  at  a  time  among  three  players. 
Besides  this  there  was  the  harpastum,  a  kind  of 


38  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

boisterous  scramble  for  one  ball,  or  more  probably 
for  several  balls,  among  a  number  of  players.  Cicero 
and  Horace  both  tell  us  that  they  did  not  care  for 
these  games ;  but  it  was  not  by  any  means  that  they 
were  despised.  The  famous  Mucius  Scaevola  the 
Augur,  the  most  learned  lawyer  of  his  day,  was  an 
excellent  ball-player,  and  used  to  refresh  himself  with 
it  daily  after  his  labours  in  the  law-courts ;  and  even 
that  rigid  philosopher,  the  younger  Cato,  was  often 
seen  playing  it  in  public  on  the  Campus  Martius. 
On  the  other  hand,  Seneca  speaks  of  those  who  give 
up  all  their  days  to  ball-playing,  much  as  a  serious 
man  might  now-a-days  of  one  who  lived  for  nothing 
but  cricket. 

7.  The  baths. — The  time  given  to  exercise, 
though  regular,  was  not  long.  When  the  eighth  hour 
came,  the  bells  of  the  public  baths  were  rung,  as  a 
sign  that  now  they  were  open,  and  the  people  came 
flocking  in  to  what  was  one  of  the  greatest  and  most 
universal  of  pleasures.  This  again,  was  one  of  the 
luxuries  of  later  days.  In  earlier  times  a  bath  was,  as 
a  rule,  only  taken  on  the  nundinae,  and  merely  for  the 
sake  of  cleanliness,  and  the  first  bath-houses,  public  as 
well  as  private,  seem  to  have  been  quite  simple.  At 
most  they  had  two  chambers,  one  for  the  cold  plunge- 
bath,  and  another  for  the  warm  bath,  and  a  swim  in 
the  Tiber  was  preferred,  at  least  by  the  younger  men,  to 
either.  But  as  early  as  the  second  Punic  war  speculators 
had  begun  to  build  baths  (balineae  or  balneae) 
after  the  fashion  of  the  Greek  fiaXavcia,  to  take  the 
place  of  the  early  national  wash-house  (lavatrina). 
At  first,  just  as  in  Greece  in  the  days  of  Aristophanes, 
old-fashioned  folk  strongly  opposed  these  luxurious 
habits,  and  looked  upon  them  as  very  weakening ;  but 
in  this,  as  in  so  many  other  things,  the  foreign  ways 
soon  became  popular.  The  numbers  of  the  baths 
increased,  and  Agrippa  the  friend  of  Augustus  is  said 
to  have  added  as  many  as  170  to  those  already  in  use. 
Later  emperors  reared  vast  piles  of  buildings  known 


Hi.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DAILY  LIFE.  39 

as  thermae,  to  include  baths,  gymnasia,  and  often 
libraries ;  and  none  of  the  ruins  of  Rome  are  more 
extensive  than  those  which  are  known  as  the  Baths  of 
Titus,  of  Caracalla,  and  of  Diocletian.  At  last  there 
was  not  a  town  in  the  provinces,  there  was  hardly  a 
village,  without  its  public  bath.  Very  many  of  these 
have  been  discovered,  but  the  best-preserved  of  all  are 
the  two  which  have  been  brought  to  view  in  Pompeii. 
By  the  help  of  these  we  can  get  a  very  clear  notion  of 
the  baths,  in  which  the  Romans  so  delighted.  Many 
books,  even  of  recent  writers,  give  a  picture  of  a 
Roman  bath,  which  was  said  to  have  been  found  on  a 
wall  in  the  Thermae  of  Titus ;  but  this  has  been 
plainly  shown  to  be  a  forgery,  and  in  some  points  it  is 
quite  misleading.  However,  we  do  not  need  its  help 
with  the  number  of  remains  which  are  still  to  be 
found.  The  Roman  bath  did  not  differ  much  from 
that  which  has  been  so  common  of  late  in  England 
under  the  name  of  the  Turkish  bath.  It  needed  at 
the  least  three  chambers  (cellae),  for  the  four  kinds  of 
bathing  which,  either  separately  or  one  after  another, 
was  usually  practised.  There  was  (i)  the  frigidarium, 
the  cold  bath,  close  to  which,  or  in  which,  some  of 
the  bathers  removed  their  dress,  and  were  afterwards 
anointed;  (2)  the  tepidarium,  a  warm  room,  also 
intended  for  undressing,  and  anointing,  if  the  bathers 
feared  a  chill;  (3)  the  caldarium,  a  heated  chamber, 
in  which  the  bathers  could  either  take  a  hot-air  bath, 
as  in  the  Turkish  bath,  or  an  ordinary  warm-bath. 
But,  of  course,  in  large  baths  each  of  these  chambers 
had  several  smaller  ones  connected  with  it;  and, 
besides  the  rooms  used  for  bathing,  there  were  others 
intended  for  various  forms  of  social  intercourse,  or  for 
exercise.  It  was  most  common  for  two  sets  of  baths 
to  be  built  together,  one  for  the  use  of  men,  the  other 
for  women.  In  the  middle  was  the  furnace,  by  which 
the  whole  was  heated,  and  over  this,  adjoining  each 
other,  Avere  the  two  caldaria.  These  were  raised  on 
arches,  so  that  the  heat  from  the  furnace  could  pass 


40  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

along  underneath  them;  and  there  were  also  earthen- 
ware pipes  to  carry  the  heat  through  the  double  walls 
of  the  chambers.  Over  the  furnaces  were  also  large 
boilers  to  supply  hot  water  whenever  it  was  needed. 

On  entering,  the  bathers  first  paid  the  fee  for  admis- 
sion, which  in  the  public  baths  was  a  very  trifling  sum 
— only  a  quadrans,  little  more  than  half-a-farthing — • 
while  in  the  baths  belonging  to  private  speculators 
higher  fees  were  charged.  Then  they  entered  the 
warm  chamber  (iepidarium)  or  the  cold  one  (frigid- 
ariutri)  according  to  taste,  or,  in  the  case  of  the  larger 
baths,  one  of  the  undressing-rooms  (apodyteria)  at- 
tached to  these.  Here  there  were  slaves  in  waiting  to 
take  charge  of  the  clothes,  and  to  do  all  needful 
services ;  and  the  bathers  sat  a  while  on  the  benches 
round  the  room  in  order  to  perspire  freely.  At  Pom- 
peii there  is  a  fountain  of  cold  water  in  the  middle  of 
the  tepidarium,  at  which  the  bathers  might  refresh 
themselves  if  the  heat  was  found  to  be  too  great ;  but 
this  does  not  seem  to  have  been  usual.  From  this 
room  they  next  went  into  the  caldarium,  where  the 
hot-bath  was  taken,  in  earlier  times  in  tubs  (alvei) 
ranged  about  in  the  room,  but  afterwards  in  a  large 
tank  or  basin  (piscina),  sunk  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor.  As  this  chamber  was  full  of  warm  vapour,  we 
find  that  the  seats  here  were  of  wood,  not  of  bronze, 
as  they  were  in  the  tepidarium,  where  there  was  not 
the  same  risk  of  their  rusting.  Here  there  were 
always  basins  (labra)  of  cold  water,  which  was  freely 
poured  over  the  bathers  :  in  one  bath,  of  which  we 
have  the  description,  these  labra  were  of  solid  silver. 
After  the  warm  bath,  the  bathers  returned  to  the  cold 
room,  where  there  was  always  a  large  pool  of  water 
(piscina),  in  which  they  took  a  plunge.  Some,  how- 
ever, preferred  another  pool  which  was  open  to  the 
sky,  and  therefore  not  quite  so  cold.  Then  followed 
an  important  part  of  the  bath  in  the  rubbing,  or  rather 
scraping  down  (destringere),  and  the  subsequent  an- 
ointing. As  soon  as  the  cold  bath  was  over  the  bather 


III.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DAILY  LIFE.  41 

went  into  the  warm  room  (tepidarium\  or  else  into  a 
special  chamber  (destrictonum,  unctorium) ;  here  he 
was  scraped  down  with  an  instrument  made  for  the 
purpose,  called  a  strigilis,  of  which  many  specimens 
still  remain  to  us;  then  rubbed  down  with  linen  towels; 
and,  finally,  anointed  with  perfumed  oil  or  unguents. 
We  often  hear  of  slaves  following  their  masters  or 
their  mistresses  to  the  baths,  carrying  with  them  several 
strigils,  towels,  and  oil-flasks  (ampullae).  Then  the 
bathers  rested  in  the  various  lounges,  provided  for 
them  so  abundantly  in  the  great  thermae,  or  watched 
the  sports  of  the  palaestra,  or  took  a  turn  or  two  in 
the  colonnades,  until  it  was  time  for  them  to  return 
home  to  dinner. 

There  was  one  other  room,  not  yet  mentioned, 
which  was  even  more  like  a  Turkish  bath  than  those 
already  described.  This  was  the  Laconicum,  a  kind 
of  chamber  first  made  the  fashion  at  Rome  by  Agrippa. 
It  was  generally  built  just  over  the  furnace,  and  it 
does  not  seem  to  have  had  any  water  in  it ;  so  that 
it  was  used  merely  as  a  heat-bath.  But  apparently  it 
did  not  form  part  of  the  usual  daily  bath,  but  was 
reserved  for  invalids,  and  for  those  who  wished  to  cure 
indigestion  by  violent  perspiration.  The  figure  given 
below  represents  a  small  private  bath  discovered  in 
1855  at  Caerwent  in  Monmouthshire.  It  shows  very 
clearly  how  the  heat  was  made  to  pass  from  one 
chamber  into  another;  but  it  is  entirely  without  the 
smaller  rooms,  and  the  places  for  lounge  and  exercise, 
which  form  so  large  a  part  of  public  baths  like  those 
discovered  at  Pompeii,  and  in  many  other  places. 

8.  The  dinner. — The  chief  meal  of  the  day  was 
taken  just  after  the  bath,  that  is  to  say,  as  a  rule, 
at  the  ninth  hour  (about  2.30  p.m.  in  summer,  and 
1.30  p.m.  in  winter).  This  was  the  cena;  and  with 
regard  to  it  two  mistakes  are  very  commonly  made.  In 
the  first  place,  its  name  is  often  spelt  coena;  but  this  is 
entirely  wrong.  Like  many  other  blunders  in  Latin 
spelling,  it  arose  from  a  notion  that  the  word  came 


ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES. 


[CHAP. 


FIG.    5. 


SMALL  PRIVATE  BATH. 


A  Entrance. 
B  Frigidarium. 
C  Cold  Piscina, 
D  Apodyterium. 


£  Tcpidarium. 
F  Caldarium. 
G  Hot  Piscina. 
H  Hot  Chamber. 


/  Furnace 


in.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DAILY  LIFE.  43 

from  a  Greek  word — in  this  case  KOIVIJ,  "a  common 
meal" — with  which  it  had  really  nothing  to  do:  ccna 
is  a  genuine  Latin  word,  not  a  borrowed  one  at  all, 
and  it  means  simply  "  meal/''  or  "  eating."  In  the 
second  place,  it  is  often  translated  "  supper,"  a  correct 
translation  only  for  those  people,  if  such  there  are, 
who  take  their  supper  as  a  rule  before  3  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon.  There  are  instances,  of  course,  of  a 
cena  later  than  this,  especially  with  those  who  were 
busy  in  the  law-courts  till  the  tenth  hour  of  the  day : 
but  the  ninth  hour  was  quite  the  usual  one.  The  like 
mistake  is  often  made  about  the  Greek  word  Sdirvov, 
which  is  sometimes  translated  "  supper,"  though  it 
never  was  this.  But  the  SCITTVOV  appears  to  have  been 
taken  usually  an  hour  or  two  later  than  the  ccna  (Greek 
Antiquities,  p.  72).  What  seems  rather  odd  to  us, 
however,  is  that  if  any  luxurious  banquet  was  to  be 
given,  they  began  it,  not  as  we  might,  somewhat  later 
than  usual,  but  earlier;  so  that  to  dine  early  in  the  day 
(de  die)  was  regarded  as  a  proof  of  extravagance  and 
self-indulgence,  and  a  "  timely  banquet "  (tcmpestivum 
conviviuni)  was  the  same  thing  as  an  elaborate  one. 
But  naturally  a  banquet  which  began  betimes  might 
also  be  carried  on  late,  perhaps  till  the  morning  light 
broke  upon  the  revellers ;  and  even  those  who  lived 
quite  simply  used  to  sit  for  a  long  while  over  their 
dinner. 

In  early  days  the  common  fare  at  dinner,  as  well 
as  at  breakfast,  was  the  national  dish  of  porridge 
(pulmentum)  made  of  wheat  or  spelt  (far) ;  and  it 
long  continued  to  be  so  among  the  poorer  classes. 
So  Plautus,  speaking  of  some  joiner's  work,  says 
that  it  was  not  made  by  a  "clumsy  porridge-eating 
Roman  workman."  The  only  usual  addition  was 
vegetables  of  various  kinds,  such  as  pease,  beans, 
and  lentils  (Icgumina)  or  cabbage,  leeks  and  onions 
(holerd) :  but  meat  was  rarely  eaten,  even  at  the  tables 
of  the  noble.  Even  bread  (pants)  was  not  always 
used :  when  it  was  needed  it  was  made  at  home  by 

10* 


44  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

the  women  or  the  slaves,  as  it  was  down  to  a  late 
date  in  the  country  parts  of  Italy.  There  were  no 
bakers  by  trade  in  Rome  until  the  third  Macedonian 
war,  nearly  600  years  after  the  date  commonly  given 
for  the  founding  of  the  city.  We  can  readily  believe 
too  that  a  cook  was,  in  those  days,  a  needless  member 
of  a  household ;  in  the  time  of  Plautus,  about  200 
years  before  Christ,  we  find  that  a  cook  was  hired 
from  the  market  whenever  a  feast  was  to  be  given, 
just  as  was  the  custom  at  Athens.  But  afterwards 
cooks  (coqui)  and  fancy  bakers  (pistores)  came  to 
be  among  the  most  valued  and  costly  of  slaves.  Per- 
haps it  was  at  first  the  feasts,  which  followed  on 
sacrifices,  that  afforded  the  suggestion  of  better  living, 
and  a  knowledge  of  the  luxury  of  the  Greeks  gave 
rise  to  increased  extravagance,  which  soon  far  outran 
that  of  their  teachers.  We  have  accounts  of  dinners 
under  the  Emperors  which  could  hardly  be  surpassed 
for  the  profuse  and  reckless  gluttony  displayed. 

The  dining-room  has  already  been  described.  Here 
the  host  and  his  guests  took  their  places,  reclining 
on  the  couches  around  the  table,  on  which  no  cloth 
was  laid  for  fear  of  hiding  its  beauties.  Every  guest 
had  his  table-napkin  (mappa),  either  supplied  by  the 
host,  or  as  often  brought  with  him  from  home.  As 
each  one  rested  on  his  left  elbow,  the  use  of  a  knife 
and  fork  was  impossible :  indeed  the  custom  of  eating 
with  a  fork  is  not  more  than  500  years  old,  and 
appears  to  have  been  invented  late  in  the  fourteenth 
century  in  Italy;  it  did  not  reach  England  before 
the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Forks  were, 
however,  used  by  the  carvers,  who  cut  up  the  meat 
before  it  was  placed  on  the  table ;  the  art  of  doing 
this  gracefully  was  studied  carefully,  and  practised  in 
training  schools  on  jointed  wooden  models.  Spoons 
(ligulae)  were  in  use  for  such  dishes  as  required  them; 
but  the  fingers  were  chiefly  employed,  just  as  is  the 
case  in  the  East  still ;  it  is  not  certain  whether  knives 
were  set  on  at  table ;  but  as  ivory-handled  knives  as 


HI.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DAILY  LIFE.  45 

well  as  spoons  have  been  found  by  the  side  of  food 
placed  in  tombs,  it  is  likely  that  they  were.  An 
article  never  wanting  on  the  table  was  the  salt-cellar : 
even  in  the  poorest  houses  this  was,  if  possible,  of 
silver,  and  it  was  looked  upon  as  a  sacred  vessel. 
It  was  used  not  only  to  flavour  the  dishes,  but  also 
to  mingle  with  the  meal  (mola  salsa)  in  the  sacrifice, 
which  was  offered  in  the  course  of  the  dinner.  In 
wealthy  houses  the  table  was  loaded  with  silver  plate, 
which,  when  not  needed  for  the  meal,  was  ranged 
for  show  on  the  side-board  (abacus).  At  a  dinner- 
party every  one  of  course  appeared  in  his  best  dress ; 
the  cumbrous  toga  was  replaced  by  a  gay-coloured 
dining  garment  (p.  75),  and  sandals  (soleae)  were  worn 
instead  of  the  ordinary  shoe.  But  as  soon  as  a  guest 
had  taken  his  place  on  the  couch,  his  slave,  who  had 
come  with  him  from  his  house,  removed  his  sandals, 
and  took  charge  of  them  until  they  were  called  for ; 
this  was  the  signal  for  leaving. 

In  an  ordinary  dinner  there  were  three  distinct 
courses.  The  first  was  called  gustus  or  gustatio,  or 
sometimes  promulsio,  because  it  preceded  the  draught 
of  mulsum,  or  wine  sweetened  with  honey.  This 
course  was  a  device  of  later  times,  and  consisted  of 
such  things  as  were  supposed  to  whet  the  appetite  for 
the  more  solid  dishes  which  followed.  These  were 
mostly  piquant  vegetables,  such  as  sorrel,  lettuce, 
pickled  cabbage  and  gherkins,  radishes,  mushrooms, 
and  the  like,  to  which  were  often  added  oysters  and 
small  salt  fish,  such  as  sardines ;  and  eggs  were  also 
included :  from  the  last  item  we  get  the  common 
proverb,  ab  ovo  iisque  ad  mala,  meaning,  "  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end."  Then  followed  the  cena 
proper,  in  the  old  days  only  a  single  course,  such  as 
the  "  beans  and  bacon  "  on  which  Horace  tells  us  he 
dined  at  his  farm  in  the  country.  But  afterwards  six 
or  seven  courses  (fercula)  were  not  uncommon,  and 
each  of  these  consisted  of  a  number  of  dishes,  which 
were  brought  in  piled  up  high  one  upon  another.  It 


46  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

would  be  an  almost  endless  task  to  recount  the 
various  forms  of  fish,  flesh,  and  fowl  which  were  ga- 
thered from  the  farthest  corners  of  the  earth,  to  sate 
the  gluttony  of  the  wealthy  Romans  under  the  Empire. 
We  must  be  content  with  noticing  that,  with  all  their 
extravagance,  the  Romans  never  attained  to  good 
taste  in  the  matters  of  the  table.  Their  dishes  were 
distinguished  much  more  for  their  rarity,  costliness, 
and  strangeness,  than  they  were  for  their  delicacy  and 
appropriateness  ;  and  we  can  fancy  how  the  fine  tastes 
of  a  Greek  would  have  revolted  at  the  coarse  profusion 
with  which  his  Roman  patron's  board  was  groaning. 
Without  going  into  details,  which  would  take  up  too 
much  space,  we  may  mention  two  articles,  seen  daily 
at  every  table  now,  which  were  never  used  by  the 
Romans.  Sugar  (saccharum)  is  spoken  of  by  Pliny 
as  "a  kind  of  white  gum,  collecting  on  reeds  in  Arabia 
and  India,  brittle  to  the  teeth,  and  of  use  only  in 
medicine ; "  for  sweetening  purposes  honey  was  always 
employed.  And,  in  the  same  way,  butter  (butyrum) 
was  recommended  by  doctors,  as  a  plaster,  but  in 
cookery  its  place  was  taken,  just  as  in  Southern 
Europe  now-a-days,  by  olive-oil. 

After  the  various  courses  of  the  cena  proper  were 
over,  there  was  a  brief  silence,  while  the  salted  meal 
(rnola  salsa)  and  libations  of  wine  were  offered  to  the 
household  gods  (Lares)  on  the  family  altar ;  after  the 
establishment  of  the  Empire  the  Genius  of  the  Em- 
peror also  received  due  honours  at  this  time.  Then 
followed  the  dessert  or  "second  tables"  (secundae 
mensae),  when  fruits  and  cakes  were  brought  on,  just 
as  with  us.  The  cakes  especially  seem  to  have  been 
very  abundant  and  various  in  kind;  we  find  many 
different  sorts  mentioned,  though  it  is  not  easy  to 
distinguish  them.  The  most  common  of  the  old 
national  sweets  were  the  placenta,  a  cake  made  with 
honey  and  cheese,  and  the  laganum,  a  kind  of  pan- 
cake, or  fritters.  Others,  by  their  Greek  names,  show 
that  they  were  of  later  importation. 


III.]  THE  ROMAN'S  DAILY  LIFE.  47 

9.  The  drinking. — The  only  drink  in  common 
use  was  wine.  This  was  rarely  drunk  unmixed  :  to  do 
so  was  regarded  as  a  mark  of  intemperance.  During 
the  dinner  each  guest  had  his  wine  mingled  to  his 
taste  in  his  own  cup,  and  slaves  brought  round  both 
warm  and  cold  water,  but  the  former  was  more  usually 
taken,  and  was  regarded  as  much  more  wholesome. 
Sometimes,  however,  ice  was  put  into  the  wine,  or  the 
mixture  was  cooled  with  snow  in  vessels  made  for  the 
purpose,  some  of  which  are  still  in  existence. 

With  the  fruit  and  cakes  of  the  "  second  tables " 
the  dinner  came  to  an  end.  But,  in  the  days  of  the 
later  luxury,  the  Romans  borrowed  from  the  Greeks 
the  custom  of  the  symposium  or  drinking-bout,  in 
Latin  comissatio.  This  was  called  Graeco  more  biberc. 
The  tables  were  cleared  of  dishes ;  garlands,  especi- 
ally of  roses,  and  perfumes  were  brought  by  the 
slaves ;  sometimes  new  guests  came  in ;  and  the  party 
settled  themselves  down  to  drinking.  A  "king  of 
the  feast,"  or  "  master  of  the  drinking "  (rex  convivii, 
arbiter  bibendi}  was  chosen  by  casting  dice.  The  great 
mixing  bowl  (crater)  was  placed  in  the  middle  of  the 
table,  and  the  wine  and  water  were  mingled  in  it 
according  to  his  orders.  Sometimes,  if  warm  water 
(calda)  were  preferred  for  the  mixture,  the  bowl  had  a 
case  for  hot  coals  in  the  centre,  somewhat  like  our 
tea-urns ;  a  very  beautiful  bowl  of  this  kind,  with  a 
cover  and  a  top,  was  found  in  the  ruins  of  Pompeii. 
Each  guest  had  his  drinking-cup  (poculum),  which  was 
filled  from  the  bowl  by  a  dipper  (cyathus)  holding  one 
twelfth  of  a  pint.  It  was  the  custom  for  the  master  of 
the  feast  to  decide  how  many  cyathi  should  be  drunk 
each  time  that  the  cups  were  rilled  again ;  and  when  a 
health  was  drunk  this  number  was  always  the  same 
with  the  number  of  letters  in  the  name.  Many  kinds 
of  wine  were  in  favour  at  Rome,  but  those  most 
prized  were  the  Caecuban,  Setine,  Faleniian,  Massic, 
and  Calene  wines,  all  grown  in  Campania,  or  in  that 
part  of  Latium  which  bordered  upon  it,  and  of  Greek 
6 


48  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

wines  the  Thasian,  the  Chian,  and  the  Lesbian.  It 
was  a  common  custom  to  mix  the  wine,  not  only  with 
spices,  but  even  with  perfumed  oils. 

10.  The  amusements  of  society. — The  Ro- 
mans, for  the  most  part,  cared  much  less  than  the 
Greeks  did  for  the  intellectual  pleasures  of  society. 
It  was  quite  the  custom  for  a  Greek  gentleman  to  be 
able  to  sing  a  song,  and  to  accompany  himself  upon 
the  lyre ;  but  we  never  hear  of  anything  of  the  kind 
in  the  case  of  a  Roman.  The  riddles  and  jokes  of  an 
Athenian  dinner-party  were  famous;  but  the  nearest 
approach  to  these  in  Rome  was  when  some  would-be 
poet  insisted  in  adding  a  new  terror  to  the  weariness 
of  the  long  debauch  by  reciting  his  latest  productions. 
On  the  other  hand,  games  of  chance  were  very  much 
relished.  The  frequent  laws  that  were  passed  against 
gambling  show  how  common  the  practice  was,  and 
how  useless  was  the  effort  to  restrain  it.  Two  kinds 
of  dice  were  in  use  :  the  first  (tesserae)  were  like  our 
own,  cubes  marked  on  each  of  their  six  sides  with 
numbers  from  one  up  to  six.  Two,  or  sometimes 
three  of  these  were  played  with,  and  they  were  thrown, 
as  with  us,  out  of  a  dice-box  (phimus  or  fritillus),  the 
player  who  threw  the  highest  number  winning.  The 
second  kind  (tali)  were  originally  the  knuckle-bones  of 
animals,  and  were  played  with  much  as  they  are  by 
children  now ;  but  afterwards  they  were  used  as  dice, 
and  made  of  various  materials.  But  they  always 
retained  pretty  nearly  their  proper  shape,  and  hence 
the  two  ends  were  rounded,  and  there  were  only  four 
sides  on  which  they  could  rest.  These  were  marked 
with  the  numbers  i,  3,  4,  and  6.  Four  tali  were  used 
in  playing :  the  highest  cast,  called  Venus,  was  when 
all  came  up  different  numbers,  the  lowest,  called  "  the 
dog"  (canis),  was  when  four  aces  were  presented. 
Sometimes,  however,  tali  were  used  like  tesserae,  and 
the  best  throw  was  that  in  which  the  highest  number 
of  pips  appeared.  Besides  the  stakes  that  were 
played  for,  betting  was  undoubtedly  largely  practised. 


IV.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  49 

From  the  earliest  times  it  had  been  a  Roman 
custom  to  have  a  piper  present  at  a  banquet,  though 
his  services  seem  to  have  been  called  for  only  at  the 
sacrifice  to  the  household  gods.  But  afterwards  it 
came  to  be  the  fashion  to  have  all  kinds  of  music  and 
singing  throughout  the  dinner.  As  tastes  grew  more 
corrupt,  buffoons  and  pantomimes,  rope-dancers  and 
conjurors,  dwarfs  and  dancing-girls,  were  brought  in  to 
help  out  the  amusements,  and  we  even  find  an 
instance  under  the  Empire  of  gladiators  fighting  at  a 
dinner-party. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  ROMAN  FAMILY. 

i.  The  idea  of  the  family. — The  family,  as 
has  been  said  before,  was  the  very  keystone  of  the 
Roman  state.  In  some  measure  this  was  the  case 
with  all  the  people  of  the  Aryan  stock.  It  was  the 
growth  of  a  family  into  a  clan,  and  of  a  clan  into 
a  tribe,  which  was  believed  to  be  the  origin  of  every 
state.  Every  citizen  was  thought  to  be  related  to 
every  other  one,  either  by  actual  bonds  of  kinship, 
or  by  ties  of  adoption,  which  were  looked  upon  as 
in  every  way  equivalent.  The  king  was  the  natural 
head  of  the  nation,  as  holding  still  by  inheritance 
the  place  which  had  once  been  held  by  the  father  of 
the  family  from  which  the  nation  had  sprung.  But 
already  in  very  early  days  we  find  that  it  was  not 
the  custom  for  him  to  do  anything  of  great  import- 
ance without  hearing  the  opinion  of  the  fathers 
(patres)  who  were  the  heads  of  the  various  clans ; 
and  questions  of  peace  or  war  were  always  brought 
before  the  great  assembly  of  the  fathers  of  every 
household.  In  some  countries,  such  as  Greece,  the 
power  and  importance  of  the  father  soon  came  to 
be  greatly  limited.  The  wish  to  give  to  every  full- 
grown  citizen  all  the  freedom  of  action  that  was 
possible,  could  not  but  loosen  the  bonds  that  bound 


50  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

the  son  to  the  father,  the  member  of  a  clan  to  the 
head  of  it.  We  have  only  traces  here  and  there  of 
that  close  union  and  entire  dependence,  which  must 
have  been  at  one  time  universal.  In  Rome,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  long  continued  to  be  the  rule  which 
shaped  the  life  of  the  nation.  The  lawful  power  of 
the  father  (patria  potestas)  was  the  natural  result  of 
his  place  as  the  head  of  the  family.  He  alone  could 
speak  and  act  for  the  family;  he  was  the  priest  of 
the  household  gods  (p.  114):  he  was  in  the  eye  of 
the  law  the  only  holder  of  the  family  property.  The 
Roman,  with  that  love  for  practical  consistency  which 
we  have  noticed  already,  would  not  limit  his  power 
in  any  way.  The  wife  was  legally  "in  the  hand" 
(in  manu)  of  her  husband,  and  all  the  rights  which 
her  father  had  had  over  her,  while  she  lived  in  his 
house,  passed  over  to  the  citizen  to  whom,  without 
any  choice  of  her  own,  he  gave  her  in  marriage  (in 
matrimo nium  dedif).  If  any  children  were  born  to 
them,  they  were  placed  at  the  father's  feet,  and  it 
was  quite  within  his  discretion  to  take  them  up 
(susdpen,  tollere)  and  have  them  reared,  or  to  expose 
them  to  death.  Deformed  and  weakly  children  were 
often  drowned,  and  we  even  read  of  cases  in  which 
an  infant  was  made  away  with,  only  because  it  was 
born  on  an  unlucky  day.  With  girls  especially  the 
custom  of  exposure  seems  to  have  been  so  common, 
that,  whereas  female  children  are  usually  slightly  more 
numerous  than  male,  the  number  of  women  in  Rome 
was  considerably  less  than  that  of  men.  Tacitus  speaks 
of  it  as  something  strange  among  our  German  kinsfolk 
that  it  was  not  lawful  so  to  limit  the  number  of  children. 
In  Italy  the  punishment  of  the  sin  was  not  long  in 
coming.  It  was  the  scarcity  of  men  which,  more  than 
anything  else,  caused  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire 
under  those  very  tribes  which  were  proud  of  their 
numerous  families.  But  the  rigorous  logic  of  the 
Roman  mind  made  them  give  to  the  father  this  power 
of  life  and  death  over  his  children,  and  in  later  days 


IV.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  51 

their  cowardly  self-indulgence  led  them  to  use  it 
largely.  According  to  the  letter  of  the  law  the  patria 
potestas  ceased  only  with  the  death  of  the  father,  with 
his  loss  of  citizenship  by  exile,  or  with  his  emancipa- 
tion of  his  son;  otherwise  the  son  was  entirely  de- 
pendent on  his  father,  and  could  not  even  hold  any 
property  of  his  own,  whether  earned  or  inherited,  but 
all  went  to  the  family,  that  is,  to  the  father  as  head 
of  it  It  was  only  in  his  public  acts  as  citizen  that 
he  was  free  to  act  as  he  pleased.  Here  the  state 
as  the  supreme  authority  overrode  the  claims  of  the 
lesser  authority  of  the  father.  A  story  is  told  which 
shows  this  well.  At  one  time  in  the  Second  Punic 
War,  Fabius  Cunctator,  an  old  and  successful  general, 
was  sent  to  serve  as  lieutenant  under  his  son,  who 
was  one  of  the  consuls  of  the  year.  The  son  went  out 
to  meet  his  father,  preceded  by  his  lictors,  marching 
as  usual  in  single  file.  The  old  general  had  ridden 
past  eleven  of  the  lictors,  when  his  son  sternly  bade 
him  dismount.  Then  the  father,  springing  from  his 
horse,  replied,  "  I  only  wished  to  see,  my  son,  whether 
you  remembered,  as  you  ought,  that  you  were  a 
Roman  consul." 

2.  The  names. — The  importance  of  the  family  in 
the  Roman  state  is  very  well  seen  from  the  custom 
with  regard  to  names.  In  Greece  each  citizen  had  a 
name  of  his  own,  most  commonly  that  of  his  grand- 
father, but  sometimes  that  of  his  father,  and  sometimes 
chosen,  as  with  us,  merely  because  it  sounded  well 
and  seemed  to  be  "aristocratic,"  long  names  being 
especially  in  favour.  In  public  business  and  for 
official  purposes  the  name  of  the  father  was  usually 
added,  and,  in  early  times,  the  name  of  the  family  to 
which  the  man  belonged :  thus  Kimon,  the  rival  of 
Perikles,  was  known  officially  as  Kimon  (son)  of 
Miltiades,  the  Lakiad;  the  father  of  Miltiades  (we  may 
notice)  having  again  been  Kimon,  and  his  grandfather 
Miltiades.  But  afterwards  it  came  to  be  the  custom 
to  take  no  account  of  the  family-name,  and  to  put  in 


52  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

place  of  it  the  demc  or  parish  in  which  the  man  lived : 
thus  Demosthenes  the  orator  was  known  in  public 
documents  as  Demosthenes  (son)  of  Demosthenes,  the 
Paianian.  Now  at  Rome  it  was  very  different.  There 
the  family  name  was  the  nornen,  the  name  par  ex- 
cellence. This  was  always  in  genuine  Roman  families 
an  adjective  form  in  — ius,  and  perhaps  it  was  always, 
what  we  know  it  was  in  a  great  many  cases,  a 
"patronymic,"  meaning  "son  of  — ,"  like  so  many, 
perhaps  the  majority,  of  our  English  surnames.  This 
name  was  held  by  every  member  of  the  clan,  in  the 
case  of  the  women  in  the  feminine  form  ;  and  also  by 
the  clients  and  the  freedmen.  But  every  man  had 
also  a  praenomen  of  his  own,  answering  somewhat  to 
our  Christian  name.  Of  these  there  were  only  eighteen 
in  common  use,  and  four  or  five  of  them  were  limited 
in  use  to  particular  families.  The  praenomina  are 
often  of  doubtful  meaning,  but  sometimes  they  seem  to 
have  reference  to  the  time  or  conditions  of  the  birth 
of  the  child.  In  the  old  days  it  was  the  practice  to 
describe  a  man  formally  by  the  use  of  his  own  prae- 
nomen and  nomen,  together  with  his  father's  prae- 
nomen :  as  Q.  Fabius  M.f.,  i.e.,  Quintus  Fabius,  Marci 
filius.  As  the  clans  grew  in  numbers,  and  parted  off 
into  various  families,  only  loosely  connected  with  each 
other  by  the  common  rites  in  which  they  all  took 
part,  these  families  came  to  be  distinguished  by  sur- 
names, added  to  the  proper  name  of  the  clan.  These 
surnames  (cognomina)  were  very  often  merely  nick- 
names, again  reminding  us  of  many  of  our  English 
names ;  and  the  old  Romans  seem  to  have  been  as 
willing  to  label  a  man  according  to  some  personal 
peculiarity  as  English  school-boys  are  at  the  present 
day.  Sometimes  the  nick-name  was  a  complimentary 
one;  thus  two  families  of  the  Claudian  clan  had  as 
cognomina  Pulcher  (handsome)  and  Xero  (manly) ; 
but  more  often  they  were  quite  the  reverse :  thus 
Titus  Maccius,  the  comic  poet,  had  the  nick-name 
Plautus  (splay-foot),  Quintus  Horatius  was  surnamed 


IV.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  53 

Flaccus  (loose-eared),  Publius  Ovidius  was  surnamed 
Naso  (big-nose),  and  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero  the  orator 
got  his  cognomen  rather  from  the  fact  that  an  ancestor 
had  on  his  face  a  wart  like  a  chick-pea  (deer)  than 
because  he  first  grew  that  vegetable.  Cossus  means 
"wrinkled,"  Calvus  "bald,"  Cato  "shrewd,"  Brutus 
"  stupid,"  Caesar  probably  "  hard-hitter."  Such  names 
were  given  at  first  to  some  member  of  a  family  whom 
they  suited,  but  afterwards  they  became  hereditary, 
and  were  used  with  no  more  thought  of  unfitness  than 
English  names  like  Bigg  or  Little,  Baker  or  Arm- 
strong. Then  they  were  employed  in  formal  docu- 
ments, but  always  so  that  their  origin  was  clear ;  that 
is,  they  were  placed  after  the  proper  name ;  Cicero's 
official  designation  would  be  Marcus  Tullius  M.  f.  M. 
n.  (Marci  nepos)  Cicero.  We  may  notice  here  in 
passing  how  this  illustrates  the  custom  of  giving  to  the 
eldest  son  the  praenomen  of  his  father;  we  have 
instances  in  which  this  is  recorded  on  a  tombstone  for 
five  generations  back,  evidently  to  show  that  the  man 
who  was  buried  there  belonged  to  a  branch  of  a 
family  which  had  for  all  that  time  been  its  lawful 
head.  The  praenomen  was  naturally,  like  our 
modern  Christian  names,  the  name  used  in  the 
family,  and  by  those  who  were  intimate  or  wished  to 
be  thought  familiar.  The  cognomen  by  itself  was 
used  in  ordinary  intercourse,  the  praenomen  being 
added  to  it  only  in  measured  or  earnest  address; 
and  the  nomen  proper  passed  almost  wholly  out  of 
use,  except  for  formal  purposes.  Under  the  Emperors 
the  older  rules  for  the  use  of  names  were  very  much 
neglected ;  and  there  are  cases  both  of  the  prae- 
nomen being  used  as  the  ordinary  name,  as  with  the 
Emperors  Caius  and  Titus,  and  of  the  cognomen 
taking  the  place  of  the  praenomen  even  for  family 
use,  as  with  Nero.  At  last  the  confusion  got  so 
complete  that  we  find  one  man  rejoicing,  like  a 
Spanish  grandee,  in  thirty  names,  heaped  one  upon 
another,  without  the  slightest  attempt  at  order. 


54  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

But  what  is  especially  to  be  noticed  is  that,  while 
with  a  Greek  citizen  his  own  individual  name  was 
almost  the  only  one  under  which  he  was  ever  known, 
with  a  Roman  the  name  by  which  he  was  addressed 
by  his  fellow-citizens  was  that  which  marked  him  out 
at  once  as  belonging  to  a  certain  family. 

The  same  was  the  case  even  more  completely  with 
the  women.  In  the  earlier  days  they  were  known 
simply  as  women  belonging  to  such  a  family,  the 
Fabian,  the  Valerian,  or  the  Aemilian.  If  there  were 
two  belonging  to  the  house  of  a  Fabius,  they  were 
distinguished  as  the  elder  (inaior)  and  the  younger 
(minor]  Fabian  (woman).  It  was  only  under  the 
Empire,  when  in  many  ways  they  had  reached  greater 
freedom  and  prominence,  that  they  took  also  a  cog- 
nomen, or  sometimes  even  two. 

3.  Marriage. — There  were  two  chief  kinds  of 
marriage  at  Rome :  in  the  one  a  woman  passed  quite 
out  of  the  power  (manus)  of  her  father  into  that  of 
her  husband ;  in  the  latter  she  did  not,  but  remained 
in  her  father's  power.  The  former  kind  was  thought 
in  the  old  days  much  the  more  proper;  but  in  later 
times  it  fell  greatly  into  disuse.  A  marriage  of  the 
first  kind  might  be  brought  about  in  one  of  three 
ways.  There  was  first  the  religious  form  of  con- 
farreatio :  in  this  the  presence  of  the  Chief  Pontiff 
and  the  Priest  of  Jove  (Flamen  Dialis,  p.  117)  was 
needed,  besides  ten  Roman  citizens  as  witnesses; 
and  a  cake  of  sacred  corn  (far)  was  solemnly  broken 
and  tasted  by  the  bride  and  bridegroom.  Then  there 
was  marriage  by  usus,  in  which  the  wife  passed  into 
the  legal  power  of  the  husband  simply  by  having 
lived  with  him  as  his  wife  for  a  twelvemonth,  without 
leaving  his  house  for  three  days  together.  And, 
lastly,  there  was  marriage  by  purchase  (coemptio),  in 
which  the  father  formally  sold  his  daughter  to  the 
bridegroom,  the  daughter  at  the  same  time  giving 
her  consent  in  the  presence  of  witnesses.  But  these 
three  forms,  as  well  as  the  laxer  form  of  marriage. 


iv.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  55 

which  afterwards  became  far  more  common,  seem 
to  have  differed  only  in  the  view  of  the  law;  and 
the  rest  of  the  bridal  ceremonies  were  almost '  the 
same  in  all.  First  came  the  betrothal,  performed  by 
the  exchange  of  the  words  spondesne?  spondee;  and 
followed,  as  often  with  us,  by  the  present  of  a  ring 
from  the  bridegroom  to  the  bride,  as  a  pledge  that 
he  would  keep  his  word.  It  was  customary  also  for 
him  to  make  the  bride  some  more  valuable  present 
as  an  Earnest  (arra) ;  and  this  was  forfeited  if  the 
marriage  did  not  take  place.  Then  before  sunrise 
on  the  morning  of  the  wedding-day  the  auspices  were 
taken,  either  by  augurs  or  by  haruspices  (p.  1 16).  The 
bride  was  dressed  in  a  white  tunic,  with  a  bright  red 
veil  (flammeum)  over  her  head,  and  her  hair  was 
parted  into  six  locks  (crines)  with  the  point  of  a  spear, 
and  tied  up  with  ribbons.  When  the  guests  were 
assembled  at  the  house  of  the  father  of  the  bride,  the 
auspices  were  declared,  and  the  words  of  the  marriage 
contract  were  pronounced  in  the  presence  of  the 
witnesses.  The  language  would  vary  according  as  the 
bride  and  bridegroom  were  of  patrician  or  plebeian 
family  :  if  both  were  patricians  the  form  of  the  confarr- 
eatio  would  be  used ;  if  either  or  both  were  plebeians, 
the  form  would  be  that  of  coemptio.  After  the  solemn 
words  were  uttered,  the  bride's  attendant  (pronuba),  a 
married  woman  who  was  a  friend  of  the  family,  laid 
her  hands  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  pair,  and  led  them 
to  the  altar  of  the  house,  there  to  offer  sacrifice  to  the 
ancient  Roman  gods.  A  cow,  a  pig,  and  a  sheep  were 
offered,  and,  while  the  auspex  repeated  the  usual  form 
of  prayer,  the  bride  and  bridegroom  walked  round  the 
altar  hand-in-hand.  The  sacrifice  over,  the  guests 
offered  their  good  wishes  in  the  cry  feliriter,  and  the 
marriage-feast  began.  When  night  came  on,  the 
bride  was  torn,  with  a  show  of  force,  from  the  arms  of 
her  mother,  and  a  merry  procession  went  along  with 
her  to  the  bridegroom's  house.  Torch-bearers  and 
flute-players  led  the  way;  whoever  chose  joined  in; 


56  .  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

the  whole  line  rang  with  shouts  of  Talassio,  perhaps 
the  name  of  an  old  god  of  marriage,  and  with  songs 
of  no  very  seemly  sort ;  and  the  bridegroom  scattered 
walnuts  to  the  boys  in  the  crowd,  as  a  sign  that  his 
childish  days  were  over.  When  the  procession  had 
reached  the  bridegroom's  house,  the  bride  anointed 
the  door-posts  and  wound  them  round  with  wool; 
then  she  was  lifted  over  the  threshold  to  avoid  the 
chance  of  an  evil  omen,  if  her  foot  should  touch  it  and 
cause  her  to  stumble,  and  Avelcomed  into  the  atrium 
by  her  husband  to  share  his  "  fire  and  water,"  the 
emblems  of  a  life  henceforth  to  be  led  in  common. 
The  next  day  there  was  a  second  marriage-feast 
(repotia)  held  in  the  husband's  house,  and  the  new 
wife  brought  her  first  offerings  to  the  gods  of  the 
family  into  which  she  was  now  adopted.  Henceforth 
she  is  a  Roman  matrona,  and  has  all  the  honours  and 
rights  which  the  Romans  gave  so  readily  to  their 
matrons. 

4.  Position  of  women. — The  married  women  at 
Rome  lived  in  a  very  different  fashion  from  those  of 
Athens  and  the  Ionian  states  of  Greece.  They  were 
not  shut  up  in  the  women's  quarter  of  the  house  : 
indeed  none  such  existed  in  the  Roman  house ;  but 
were  the  honoured  mistresses  of  the  household.  They 
span  and  wove  with  their  daughters  and  the  maid- 
servants (ancillae),  but  did  no  menial  work,  such  as 
grinding  corn  or  cooking.  They  were  allowed  to  go 
out  to  pay  visits,  and  to  receive  them;  they  even 
accompanied  their  husbands  to  the  games  and  to  the 
theatres  \  everyone  made  way  for  them  in  the  streets  ; 
and  anyone  who  insulted  them  was  judged  to  be 
worthy  of  death.  We  often  find  them  taking  warm 
interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  country ;  and  their  advice 
is  asked  with  respect  by  their  husbands.  It  was 
noticed  at  Rome,  as  it  often  has  been  in  modern 
countries,  that  the  highest  standard  of  pure  and  un 
corrupted  language  and  pronunciation  was  to  be  found 
in  the  daily  conversation  of  educated  ladies.  The 


IV.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  57 

writers  of  later  times  delight  to  dwell  on  the  sober, 
grave,  and  simple  life  of  the  women  of  the  earlier 
days;  a  life  which,  in  the  days  of  the  Empire,  was 
hardly  to  be  found  except  in  the  homesteads  of  the 
country.  But  the  women,  like  the  men  of  Rome, 
were  for  the  most  part  such  as  to  call  for  honour  and 
respect  rather  than  warm  affection.  They  were  not, 
as  we  shall  see  immediately,  as  ignorant  as  the  wives 
of  the  citizens  of  Athens ;  but  they  had  few  ac- 
complishments;  and  they  are  often  spoken  of  as 
harsh  and  domineering.  In  the  general  decay  of 
Roman  virtue,  which  followed  the  rapid  growth  of  the 
Republic  in  wealth  and  power,  and  the  loss  of  their 
ancient  faith,  none  suffered  more  than  the  women. 
Freedom  passed  into  license;  divorce  was  easy  and 
extremely  common ;  the  simplicity  of  the  older  times 
became  reckless  waste  and  luxury.  We  have  some 
beautiful  stories  of  the  goodness  and  faithfulness  of 
women,  even  in  the  bad  days  of  the  Empire ;  but,  as 
a  whole,  we  cannot  doubt  that  their  lives  and  thoughts 
had  sunk  very  low  indeed.  The  Emperor  Augustus 
made  great  efforts  at  reform.  But  his  own  example, 
and  that  of  the  leading  men  of  his  court,  did  not  do 
much  to  help  him ;  and  things  went  on  from  bad  to 
worse  for  at  least  a  century  after  his  death. 

5.  The  children. — At  first  children  were  looked 
upon  as  entirely  the  property  of  the  father;  and  he 
could  do  whatever  he  pleased  with  a  new-born  infant. 
But  in  very  early  times  a  law  was  made  that  no  one 
should  expose  a  son  or  a  first-born  daughter,  unless  it 
was  deformed  or  very  weakly.  Still,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  exposure  of  female  children  was  always  very 
common.  The  fate  of  these  children  was  often  very 
sad.  If  they  did  not  die  of  neglect,  they  were  picked 
up  by  those  who  would  keep  them  for  a  time  in  order 
to  sell  them  afterwards  as  slaves.  Sometimes  even 
beggars  took  them,  and  deformed  them  fearfully,  as 
we  are  told  they  do  at  the  present  day  in  Italy,  in 
order  to  work  upon  the  feelings  of  the  compassionate, 


58  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

and  so  get  money  by  them.      If  a  child  were  "  taken 
up"  by  the  father  and  reared,  the  mother  herself  in 
the  earlier  days  always  nursed  it  and  took  care  of  it. 
Afterwards  wet-nurses  (nutrices)  were  common.    The 
mother,  too,  had  the  charge  of  the  earliest  education 
of  the  children.     This  was  at  first  very  simple ;  and 
lay  much  more  in  training  to  good  habits  than  in 
giving  knowledge.     Children  were  taught  with  care  to 
love  their  country,  and  to  reverence  its  laws,  to  be 
truthful  and  pure  and  honest  in  word  and  deed,  to  pay 
to  the  gods  of  the  home  and  the  state  their  regular 
dues,  and,  above  all  things,  to  obey  without  question 
or  murmuring.      When  a  boy  grew  older  his  father 
would  begin  to  take  charge  of  him :  he  kept  him  with 
him  as  much  as  possible,  took  him  out  into  the  fields 
to  work,  or  down  into  the  Forum  to  business,  and 
taught  him  to  ride,  to  swim,  and  to  use  the  arms  of 
war.     At  one  time,  we  are  told,  the  boys  used  to  be 
allowed  to  go  with  their  fathers  into  the  senate-house ; 
but  this  was  put  a  stop  to,  because  the  mothers  teased 
the  boys  so  much  to  tell  them  what  had  been  dis- 
cussed there.     The  exercises  taken  by  the  boys  were 
unlike  those  of  the  Greeks  in  one  point.     The  Greeks 
practised  always  with  a  view  to  bringing  the  power 
and  the  beauty  of  the  body  to  the  highest  possible 
pitch,  and  held  victorious  athletes  in  the  very  highest 
honour.     But  the  Roman  games  and  exercises  were 
intended  only  to  make  men  strong  and  skilful  warriors; 
and  it  was  not  for  beauty  of  form  or  grace  of  move- 
ment, but  only  for  vigour  and  prowess  in  battle,  that 
they  were  honoured  by  their  fellow-citizens.     So  their 
training  was  such  as  to  make  them  hard  and  strong. 
At  first,  too,  the  father  probably  taught  the  boy  the 
few  attainments  which  he  would  need  for  his  after-life; 
a  little  reading,  writing,  and   arithmetic,  and   some 
knowledge   of   the   laws   and   the   traditions   of   his 
country  would   be   the  utmost.      But   schools   must 
have  existed  in   Rome  in  very  early  days,  for  we 
read  of  Virginia  going  to  one  in  the  Forum  in  the 


IV.l  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  59 

year  450  B.  c.,  and  they  are  mentioned  not  much 
later  in  some  other  Italian  towns.  Boys  and  girls 
appear  to  have  been  taught  together,  but  the  subjects 
they  studied  can  have  been  little  more  than  what  we 
have  just  mentioned,  unless  we  ought  to  add  some 
knowledge  of  singing  and  of  the  old  ballads  of  their 
country.  These  ballads  were  written  in  the  Saturnian 
metre,  of  which  we  have  an  excellent  specimen  in  the 
line  of  our  nursery  song,  "The  queen  was  in  her 
parlour,  counting  out  her  money,"  and  were  sung  by 
boys  or  by  the  guests  at  feasts.  But  a  great  change  in 
this,  as  in  many  other  things,  came  about  when  the 
Romans,  after  the  first  Punic  war,  had  more  to  do 
with  Greece.  They  had  indeed  already  learnt  much 
from  the  Greeks  of  Lower  Italy  and  Sicily ;  but  now 
Greeks  came  and  settled  in  Rome,  and  found  much 
favour  with  some  of  the  leading  men  there,  especially 
with  Scipio  and  his  friends.  Now  first  literature 
began  to  be  studied  in  schools.  Perhaps  the  very 
earliest  Latin  school-book  was  a  translation  of  Homer's 
Odyssey,  made  in  the  old  Roman  Saturnian  metre  by 
Livius  Andronicus,  a  Greek  who  was  the  freedman 
of  Marcus  Livius,  and  so  had  taken  his  nomen.  This 
was  only  a  rough  and  clumsy  version,  but  it  served 
the  purpose  for  which  it  was  made,  that  of  giving  to 
his  pupils  the  first  access  to  the  fresh  and  priceless 
treasures  of  Greek  poetry.  At  the  same  time,  or  only 
a  little  later,  lived  the  earliest  of  the  Roman  poets, 
Naevius,  Ennius,  and  Plautus,  and  their  works, 
too,  were  soon  pressed  into  the  service  of  the  schools. 
The  Greek  language  now  was  commonly  studied,  and 
Greek  slaves  were  often  bought  as  nurses  for  the 
children.  The  slave  whose  duty  it  was  to  watch  over 
the  boys  as  they  went  to  and  fro  from  school,  and  in 
their  hours  of  play,  to  teach  them  good  manners  and 
to  keep  them  from  all  bad  company,  came  now  to  be 
usually  a  Greek,  and  was  known  by  the  Greek  name 
of  paedagogus.  It  was  not  expected  of  this  slave  that 
he  should  teach  anything,  except,  perhaps,  so  much  of 
11*  6 


6o  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

his  own  language  as  might  be  picked  up  by  talk :  as 
Varro  says,  instituit  paedagogus,  docet  magister;  and  so 
St.  Paul,  in  his  use  of  the  word  (Gal.  iii.  24)  is 
thinking  only  of  moral  training,  and  not  of  any 
lessons  given.  But,  of  course,  he  had  great  influence 
over  the  character,  and,  therefore,  careful,  fathers  took 
pains  to  choose  the  most  trusty  of  their  slaves  for  this 
office.  The  first  school  in  Rome  where  Greek  litera- 
ture was  properly  studied  is  said  to  have  been  opened 
in  197  B.C.  by  a  Greek  grammarian  named  Krates. 
He  had  come  to  Rome  as  the  envoy  of  King  Attalos 
of  Pergamos,  and  when  there  had  broken  his  leg  by 
an  accident.  Being  thus  detained  in  the  city,  he  gave 
public  lessons  in  "grammar,"  that  is  to  say,  in  our 
modern  phrase,  in  literature;  and  these  were  very 
popular  and  largely  attended.  But  before  this  time 
there  had  been  many  Greek  tutors  in  private  houses ; 
eminent  Romans  had  written  histories  in  Greek ;  and 
the  frequent  jokes  in  the  plays  of  Plautus,  which 
cannot  be  understood  without  a  knowledge  of  Greek, 
prove  that  the  language  must  have  been  tolerably 
familiar  to  many,  even  of  the  poorer  classes. 

6.  The  schools  in  Rome. — The  teaching  in 
the  ordinary  schools  was  long  confined  to  elementary 
subjects,  such  as  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic, 
together  with  the  study  of  literature.  Livius,  Naevius, 
and  Ennius  were  still  taught  in  Horace's  boyhood, 
more  than  a  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  the 
latest  of  them,  when  their  language  had  already  grown 
very  old-fashioned.  Cicero's  speeches  were  used  for 
lessons  in  schools,  even  during  his  life-time ;  and  the 
works  of  Vergil  and  Horace,  very  soon  after  the  death 
of  the  poets,  took  that  place  as  school-books  which 
they  have  never  lost  since.  But  perhaps  it  was  only 
in  the  schools  of  the  capital  that  the  literature  of 
Greece  was  taught ;  for  we  find  that  the  father  of 
Horace,  who  spent  great  pains  and  much  money  on 
the  education  of  his  only  child,  brought  him,  when 
twelve  years  old,  from  the  country-town  of  Venusia 


IV.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMIL  Y.  61 

to  Rome  to  study  there.  Boys  were  sent  to  school 
first  \vhen  about  seven  years  of  age.  They  were 
followed,  if  their  fathers  could  afford  it,  by  slaves 
(capsarii)  to  carry  their  books  and  writing-tablets;  but 
often  they  carried  these  themselves,  as  Horace  tells 
us,  and  were  only  attended  by  one  slave  called  pedis- 
sequus.  The  school  was  often  a  room  on  the  ground- 
floor,  open  to  the  street,  just  as  it  is  to  the  present 
day  in  the  East.  Reading  was  taught  in  a  class,  the 
boys  repeating  after  the  master  in  a  kind  of  chant, 
first  the  letters,  then  the  syllables,  and  then  the  whole 
word.  The  task  of  learning  must  have  been  much 
easier  than  at  present,  for,  with  rare  exceptions,  Latin 
words  were  pronounced  exactly  as  they  were  written. 
But  the  scrawls  on  the  walls  of  Pompeii  show  us 
plainly  that  the  art  of  spelling  was  not  always  mastered 
even  then.  In  early  days  books  were  rare  and  dear ; 
but  by  the  time  of  the  emperors  so  many  well-trained 
slaves  were  kept  by  the  booksellers  for  the  purpose  of 
copying  them,  that  they  seem  to  have  been  quite  as 
cheap  as  the  cheapest  are  with  us.  For  writing  boys 
used  at  first  tablets  covered  with  wax,  on  which  the 
letters  were  marked  with  a  pointed  instrument  (stilus); 
they  began  with  copying  over  letters  traced  already 
by  the  master,  who  often  guided  their  hands;  then 
they  tried  to  imitate  the  letters  for  themselves.  When 
they  had  made  a  little  progress  they  had  to  write  on 
paper  (charta)  made  from  the  papyrus  plant,  with 
ink  and  pens  of  reeds.  The  paper  used  in  schools  was 
generally  such  as  had  been  already  written  on  one 
side,  and  used  for  accounts  or  for  books  which  had 
found  no  purchasers.  Care  was  taken  that  the  words 
set  to  be  copied  should  be  verses  or  proverbs  con- 
taining some  good  lesson,  just  as  in  the  heading  of 
many  of  our  copy-books  now.  Quickness  of  writing 
seems  to  have  been  more  prized  than  neatness ;  and, 
in  the  time  of  Cicero,  a  kind  of  shorthand  came  into 
use.  Readiness  at  accounts,  too,  was  also  valued 
much,  and  there  were  special  masters  for  arithmetic, 


62  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

who  taught  the  quickest  ways  of  calculating  bills  or 
interest  without  the  use  of  figures. 

7.  Punishments. — The  rod  was  in  frequent  use 
among  the   Roman  schoolmasters  fro.n  the  earliest 
times.     Plautus  tells  -us  that  if  a  boy  missed  a  single 
letter  in  his  reading,  he  was  soon  black  and  blue 
all  over,  "striped  just  like  his  nurse's  cloak;"   and 
Martial  speaks  of  it  as  one  of  the  greatest  nuisances 
of  a  life  in  the  city,  that  before' cock-crow  the  air 
was  resounding  with  the  noise  of  floggings  and  the 
cries  of  the  children  in  the  schools.    The  most  famous 
teacher  of  his  time,  Quintilian  (flourished  A.D.   70- 
90),  made  an  earnest  protest  against  the  custom  of 
flogging :  but  a  picture  .from  Herculaneum,  belonging 
to  the  very  same  period,  shows  that  the  practice  of 
"horsing,"  after  the   Eton  fashion,  was  carried  on 
even  then. 

8.  School  holidays. — There  were  two  regular 
school  holidays  in  the  year.     One  was  in  December 
at  the  time  of  the  Saturnalia,  a  time  of  general  merry- 
making, in  which   even  the  slaves  took  part;    the 
second  was  in  March  at  the  Quinquatria,  a  festival 
of  Minerva,  extending  from  the  igth  to  the   25th. 
The  latter  was  regarded  as  the  end  of  the  school 
course  :   it  was  then  that  the  boys  in  the  schools  of 
the  city  paid  their  yearly  fees,  and  those  who  were 
entering  brought  a  present  (Minerval)  to  the  master 
that  he  might  offer  sacrifice  for  them  and  win  the 
favour  of  the  goddess.      In  the  country-schools  the 
fees  were*  brought  every  month ;  and  the  four  months 
of  the  summer,  the  time  for  the  olive  harvest  and 
the  vintage,  were  also  kept  as  holidays.     We  do  not 
know  that  the  same  was  the  custom  at  Rome  :   but 
as  the  city  was  then,  just  as  now,  very  unhealthy  in 
August  and  September,  it  seems  probable  that  at  least 
the  children  of  the  wealthier  citizens  then  went  with 
their  parents  to  their  country-houses,  or  their  villas 
by  the  sea.      As  Martial  says,  they  learnt  enough  if 
they  learnt  to  keep  well  then. 


IV.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  63 

9.  Position  of  the  schoolmaster. — The  esteem 
in  which  the  schoolmaster  was  held   depended,  of 
course,  very  much  upon  his   own  attainments  and 
character.     We  find  several  cases  of  men  who,  after 
failing  in   everything    else,   took    to   teaching    boys. 
These  had,  as  they  deserved,  very  little  pay  or  credit 
for  very  hard  drudgery.     Often,  too,  men  of  a  better 
stamp  were  only  poorly  rewarded.     Those  who  were 
litcratores,  or,  as  we  should  say,  professors  of  literature, 
were  expected  to  have  at  their  fingers'  ends  every- 
thing that  could  possibly  be  known  about  all  the 
characters  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  epics  and  tragedies, 
and  on  their  way  to  dinner  or  the  bath  to  be  ready 
with  the  name  of  the  nurse  of  Anchises,  the  native 
land  of  the  daughter-in-law  of  Anchemolus,  the  years 
reached  by  Acestes,  or  the  number  of  jars  of  wine 
given  by  the  Sicilians  to  ^Lneas  and  his   Trojans : 
and  after  all  they  could  not  make  as  much  money 
in  a  year  as  a  jockey  would  make  by  a  single  race. 
The  competition  among  the  cro\vd  of  Greeks  that 
flocked  into  Rome  as  teachers  was  much  too  great 
to  allow  a  very  high  standard  of  fees  to  be  main- 
tained.    But  the  case  was  somewhat  different  with 
the  class  of  famous  rhetoricians  of  whom  we  have 
next  to  speak. 

10.  Schools  of  rhetoric. — The  power  of  speak- 
ing well  had  always  been  of  much  account  at  Rome, 
as  it  must  be  in  every  free  state :  but  no  great  pains 
had  been  taken  to  study  the  art  of  rhetoric.      This 
was  first  done  in  Sicily,  and  afterwards  more  com- 
pletely at  Athens,  where  the  most  famous  orators  and 
teachers  of  Greece  lived  and  flourished.      But  when 
the  Greek  teachers  of  rhetoric  first  came  to  Rome 
they  found   great  favour  there.      It  was   at  a  time 
when  arms  were  no  longer  the  only  path  to  office  and 
to  glory,  and  when  there  were  many  great  political  trials 
in  consequence  of  the  bad  government  of  the  provinces 
by  the  Roman  nobles  (See  Primer  of  Roman  History, 
p.  56).     So  it  came  to  be  the  custom  for  every  young 


64  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

Roman  of  good  position,  after  he  had  finished  his 
course  at  the  school  of  literature,  or  under  a  private 
tutor,  to  study  oratory  with  some  Greek  teacher- 
There  were  also  Latin  professors  of  rhetoric,  but  these 
were  not,  as  a  rule,  much  thought  of.  In  the  school 
of  rhetoric  the  pupils  were  set  to  make  speeches  on 
the  one  side  or  the  other  of  any  supposed  case  which 
was  given  to  them.  Great  attention  was  paid  to  the 
discovery  of  proper  arguments,  to  the  arrangement 
of  these  in  the  most  striking  order,  to  the  choice  of 
fitting  language,  including  the  use  of  figures  of  speech, 
to  the  control  of  the  voice,  and  to  the  proper  manage- 
ment of  the  looks  and  the  gestures.  Cicero,  in  his 
great  work  On  the  Orator,  finds  fault  with  many  of  the 
rules  that  were  given  in  the  schools  as  not  sufficiently 
practical;  but  doubtless  the  training  that  was  fur- 
nished then  did  much  to  fashion  the  race  of  orators 
who  abounded  at  the  close  of  the  Republic;  and 
Cicero  himself  both  studied  and  practised  most  dili- 
gently. The  proper  time  to  join  these  rhetorical 
schools  was  after  the  dress  of  manhood  had  been 
put  on  (p.  74) ;  but  under  the  Emperors  it  was  very 
common  for  rhetoric  to  be  taught  in  ordinary  schools, 
and  for  boys  to  stun  their  master's  ears  with  their 
loud  declaiming. 

ii.  University  education. — The  higher  educa- 
tion of  young  Romans  of  wealth  and  position  was 
carried  on  for  the  most  part  in  the  Greek  cities  of 
the  East,  and  especially  at  Athens.  This  last  may 
indeed  be  called  the  university  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
Long  after  the  days  of  its  freedom  and  glory  had 
ceased,  it  was  still  the  chosen  home  of  writers  and 
teachers  from  every  part  of  the  civilized  world.  It 
was  there  that  the  four  great  systems  of  philosophy, 
which  were  then  most  in  favour,  were  taught  by  their 
leading  men ;  and  to  hear  these  lectures  young 
Romans  came  in  numbers.  Vergil,  it  is  true,  studied 
philosophy,  as  we  are  told,  under  a  Greek  teacher 
at  Rome;  and  one  of  the  most  charming  of  his 


IV.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  65 

smaller  poems  tells  of  the  joy  with  which  he  turned 
from  the  empty  disputes  of  the  schools  of  rhetoric, 
to  the  serious  questions  of  philosophy.  But  Horace 
went  for  his  higher  teaching  to  Athens  ;  so  did  Cicero, 
his  son,  and  his  nephew,  and,  in  short,  almost  all 
who  could  afford  the  time  and  cost  of  a  stay  there. 

12.  The    slaves. — Slavery  was  known  from  the 
beginning  at  Rome,  as  among  ail  other  ancient  nations 
of  which  we  have  any  knowledge ;  but  in  the  early 
days  of  the  state  the  slaves  were  by  no  means  nu- 
merous.     When  the  citizen  himself,  with  the  help  of 
his  sons,  tilled  the  small  farm  on  which  he  lived,  there 
was  little  need  of  the  aid  of  slaves,  and  little  money 
with  which  to  buy  them.     But  every  battle  which  the 
legions  of  the  Republic  gained  added  by  its  prisoners 
to  the  numbers  of  the  slaves  of  the  citizens.     Then,  as 
the  wealth  of  the  city  grew,  slaves  were  exported  to 
Rome  in  abundance  from  foreign  countries,  or  in  later 
times  from  every  province  in  the  empire.   The  Romans, 
indeed,  never  sank  so  low  as  the  Southern  States  of 
America  did,  when   one  part   of  the   country  bred 
slaves  as  a  matter  of  business  to  supply  the  markets  of 
another  part.      But  slaves  were  naturally  brought  in 
numbers  from  the  poorer  parts  of  the  Empire  to  the 
centre  of  its  wealth  and  luxury.      So,  by  degrees,  they 
grew  to  unheard-of  numbers.      This  was  partly  from 
the  way  in  which  the  old  yeomen  of  the  country  had 
become  extinct,  and  their  farms  had  been  swallowed 
up  in  the  broad  estates  (latifundia)  of  the  nobles 
{Primer  of  Roman  History,  p.   55);  partly  from  the 
growth  of  display  and  extravagance  in  the  city.     We 
find  that,  under  the  Empire,  there  was  hardly  a  man 
so  poor  as  not  to  have  his  slave  :  Horace  speaks  of 
himself  as  living  extremely  simply  when  waited  upon 
by  three  slaves  at  dinner  alone  at  home ;  and  we  are 
told  that  it  was  not  uncommon  for  nobles  to  possess 
ten  or  twenty  thousand  slaves,  or  even  more  than  this. 

13.  House  slaves. — The  household  of  slaves  was 
called  familia,  a  word  so  different  in  meaning  from  our 


66  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

own  word  family  that  we  hear  in  Caesar  of  a  familia 
including  10,000  souls.  It  was  generally  divided  into 
two  parts,  (i)  familia  urbana,  (2)  familia  rustica. 
The  familia  urbana  lived  in  the  town-house  of  the 
master,  and  included  all  those  slaves  whom  he  kept 
for  luxury  and  show.  In  the  later  days  of  the  Re- 
public and  under  the  Empire,  these  were  exceedingly 
numerous,  and  had  the  most  varied  duties.  One  set 
looked  after  the  rooms  and  furniture,  another  after  the 
cooking  and  the  service  of  the  table,  a  third  after  the 
dresses  and  the  toilette  of  the  master  and  mistress ; 
then  there  were  those  whose  duty  it  was  to  escort  their 
lord  whenever  he  appeared  in  public,  to  carry  his 
litter,  to  clear  the  way  for  him  through  the  narrow 
streets,  to  remind  him  of  the  names  of  acquaintances 
or  clients,  or  to  run  his  errands.  But  in  every  wealthy 
house  were  found  slaves,  sometimes  in  considerable 
numbers,  who  had  received  a  very  different  training 
from  that  which  was  needed  for  the  household  drudges, 
or  the  train  of  attendants  in  the  banqueting-hall  or 
the  forum.  No  small  part  of  the  business  of  the 
master  was  managed  by  his  slaves,  and  no  small 
part  of  his  amusement  was  due  to  them.  Slaves 
were  trained  as  clerks,  as  secretaries,  as  copyists,  as 
librarians,  as  readers,  as  actors,  as  singers  and  mu- 
sicians of  all  kinds,  or  as  jesters.  A  large  part  of  the 
manufacturing  industry  of  Rome  was  carried  on  by 
slaves,  and  this  proved  extremely  harmful  to  the 
poorer  citizens,  for  there  was  but  little  which  they 
could  do  to  earn  an  honest  livelihood.  Sometimes,  of 
course,  a  slave  was  made  to  do  double  duty  :  thus  we 
hear  of  Atticus,  the  friend  of  Cicero,  that  every  one  of 
his  lackeys  (pedissequi)  was  also  able  to  copy  books 
and  to  read  aloud.  But  cases  of  this  kind  are  not  very 
common;  and,  as  a  rule,  every  slave  had  his  own  office, 
just  as  in  India  now  with  the  native  servants,  so  that 
we  can  easily  understand  the  numbers  which  seem  to 
have  been  usual  in  the  great  Roman  palaces. 

14.   Farm-slaves. — The  familia  rustica,  on  the 


IV.]  7 HE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  67 

other  hand,  was  not  kept  so  much  for  show  as  for 
profit  The  Romans  were  shrewd  and  skilful  farmers; 
and  knew  how  to  get  the  utmost  out  of  the  labour  of 
their  slaves.  At  first  they  gave  themselves  up  for  the 
most  part  to  the  growth  of  corn ;  but,  when  the  rich 
corn-lands  of  Sicily  and  Africa  were  added  to  the 
Empire,  it  came  to  be  better,  just  as  it  is  in  many 
parts  of  England  now,  to  spend  more  pains  on  the 
breeding  of  cattle  and  sheep.  The  increase  in  the 
number  of  slaves,  and  in  the  size  of  estates,  also 
helped  to  cause  this  ;  for  the  tillage  of  the  fields  needs 
more  careful  training  and  constant  overlooking  than 
the  tending  of  flocks  and  herds,  that  can  roam  on  the 
hills  half  wild.  Hence,  though  ploughmen  and  reapers 
were  not  wanting,  a  constantly-increasing  number  of 
the  country-slaves  were  employed  as  ox-herds,  shep- 
herds, or  swine-herds.  The  olive  and  the  vine  formed 
a  very  valuable  part  of  Italian  agriculture,  and  doubt- 
less these  were  looked  after,  at  least  in  part,  by  slaves; 
but  probably  it  was  here  that  free  day-labourers  found 
their  most  common  employment.  But  often  the 
produce  of  a  vine-yard  or  an  olive-ground  was  sold  by 
contract,  and  the  buyer  would  send  his  own  slaves  or 
labourers  to  gather  it.  The  slave  in  charge  of  the 
farm  was  called  the  vilicus,  and  in  the  absence  of  the 
master  he  had  the  direction  of  all  the  work ;  but 
often,  in  the  case  of  large  estates,  the  vilicus  was 
under  the  control  of  a  free  agent  (procurator)  of  the 
owner.  The  work  of  the  country-slaves  was  naturally 
harder  than  that  of  the  town-slaves,  and  their  general 
condition  was  worse ;  so  that  it  was  thought  to  be  a 
heavy  punishment  for  a  slave  to  be  sent  from  the  town- 
house  to  work  in  the  fields,  just  as  in  the  Southern 
States  of  America  household  slaves  who  lost  their 
piasters'  favour  were  sent  to  the  cotton  plantations. 

15.  The  treatment  of  slaves. — The  Romans 
seem  to  have  treated  their  slaves  as  a  rule  much 
worse  than  the  Greeks  did.  It  is  true  that  the 
Greeks  were  often  cruelly  thoughtless  as  to  the  work 


68  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

they  expected  from  their  slaves,  and  quite  without 
any  sense  of  the  claims  of  a  common  kinship  of  man 
to  man.  But  if  they  did  not  use  them  any  better 
than  they  did  their  horses,  at  least  they  did  not  use 
them  worse.  But  the  Roman  was  by  nature  hard 
and  unpitying ;  he  never  spared  himself  any  pain  or 
hardship  in  doing  his  duty,  and  he  certainly  never 
dreamt  of  sparing  his  slaves.  The  Greek  was  for- 
bidden by  law  to  kill  a  slave  or  to  treat  him  with 
positive  cruelty.  The  Roman  master  could  do  with 
a  slave  exactly  what  he  pleased,  as  much  as  with 
any  other  piece  of  his  property.  It  is  true  that  we 
have  one  case  on  record  in  which  the  action  of  the 
master  was  checked.  In  the  time  of  Augustus  a 
wealthy  Roman,  whose  name  was  Vedius  Pollio,  was 
fond  of  keeping  lampreys,  and  whenever  a  slave  of 
his  displeased  him,  he  had  him  thrown  to  feed  these 
fish.  Once  when  the  Emperor  was  dining  with  Pollio, 
a  slave  was  clumsy  enough  to  break  a  crystal  goblet, 
and  orders  were  given  at  once  that  he  should  be 
thrown  into  the  pond  as  usual.  Augustus  begged  for 
his  forgiveness ;  his  master  refused  to  grant  it ;  and 
then  the  Emperor,  angry  at  the  obstinacy  of  Pollio, 
and  shocked,  we  may  hope,  at  his  cruelty,  ordered 
every  one  of  his  goblets  to  be  broken,  and  the  fish- 
ponds to  be  all  filled  up.  But  we  may  conceive  of 
the  state  of  things  when  atrocities  like  these  were 
punished  so  lightly,  and  then,  as  it  seems,  only  be- 
cause of  the  accident  of  the  Emperor's  presence.  In 
the  earlier  and  simpler  days,  things  were  in  some 
respects  hardly  so  bad,  because  the  slave  was  regarded 
as  one  of  the  family,  eat  and  drank  with  the  master, 
though  indeed  at  a  different  table,  and  shared  his 
daily  work.  On  the  other  hand,  if  there  was  less 
of  barbarous  cruelty,  there  was  more  of  unfeeling 
hardness.  By  the  time  of  the  Emperors  the  gentler 
teaching  of  the  Greek  philosophy  had  had  much  effect 
upon  the  better  class  of  Romans.  Cato,  a  perfect 
pattern  of  the  stern  old  Roman  farmer  (Primer  of 


IV.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  69 

History ',  p.  53),  had  a  maxim  that  a  slave  ought  always 
to  be  at  work  or  asleep.  Even  on  holidays  (feriae) 
he  found  all  kinds  of  work  for  his  slaves  to  do.  If 
any  of  them  were  ill,  it  was  a  sign  that  they  had 
been  eating  too  much.  He  tells  a  farmer  to  sell 
at  once  worn-out  cattle,  diseased  sheep,  broken  carts 
and  tools,  aged  and  sick  slaves,  and  other  useless 
things.  Plutarch,  the  Greek  philosopher,  who  wrote 
a  life  of  Cato  250  years  after  his  death,  says  of  this : 
"In  my  judgment  it  marks  an  over-rigid  temper  for 
a  man  to  take  the  work  out  of  his  servants  as  out 
of  brute  beasts,  turning  them  off  and  selling  them 
in  their  old  age,  and  thinking  that  there  ought  to 
be  no  further  commerce  between  man  and  man,  than 
whilst  there  arises  some  profit  from  it.  ...  As  to 
myself,  I  would  not  so  much  as  sell  my  draught  ox 
on  the  account  of  his  age,  much  less  for  a  small 
piece  of  money  sell  a  poor  old  man,  and  so  chase 
him,  as  it  were,  from  his  own  country,  by  turning 
him  not  only  out  of  the  place  where  he  had  lived  a 
long  while,  but  also  out  of  the  manner  of  living  he 
had  been  accustomed  to,  and  that  more  especially 
when  he  would  be  as  useless  to  the  buyer  as  to  the 
seller."  And  yet,  in  spite  of  this  better  teaching,  it 
is  in  the  days  of  Plutarch  that  we  hear  of  the  most 
numerous  and  most  horrible  stories  of  cruelty  to  slaves. 
If  men  knew  better  then  what  they  ought  to  do, 
they  were  slower  to  do  it.  In  his  time  it  was  a 
common  saying  that  a  man  had  as  many  enemies  as 
he  had  slaves.  We  cannot  wonder  at  this,  when  we 
hear  of  the  way  in  which  they  were  often  treated. 
In  many  parts  of  the  country  it  was  the  custom  for 
them  to  work  in  chains.  At  night  they  were  shut 
up  in  large  barracks  (ergastula)  partly  under-ground, 
lit  only  by  small  windows,  so  high  that  they  could 
not  look  out  of  them.  Even  in  Rome  it  was  the 
custom  for  the  porter  to  be  chained  at  the  door 
like  a  dog.  In  the  great  houses  there  was  a  slaye 
(silentiarius)  whose  duty  it  was  to  keep  strict  silence 


70  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

among  his  fellow-slaves,  and  the  slightest  sound,  even 
a  cough  or  a  sneeze,  was  punished  with  blows.  They 
were  fed  on  the  coarsest  food :  Cato  says  that  in 
addition  to  their  monthly  rations  of  corn  they  are 
to  have  a  few  fallen  olives,  which  are  to  be  made 
to  go  as  far  as  possible;  when  these  are  all  used, 
they  may  have  a  little  salt  fish  and  vinegar.  Even 
their  poor  allowances  were  often  cut  down  for  his 
own  profit  by  the  vilicus.  A  cloak  and  a  pair  of 
wooden  shoes  were  given  them  once  in  two  years ; 
a  tunic  once  a  year.  It  is  a  sign  of  the  economy 
which  more  than  anything  marked  the  Roman  farmer, 
that  old  clothes  had  to  be  returned  to  the  vilicus, 
who  had  them  made  into  patch-work  quilts  (centones). 
The  punishments  were  numerous  and  cruel.  For 
slight  offences  slaves  were  beaten  with  a  rod  (virga) 
or  a  bundle  of  elm-twigs  (ulrnei),  answering  to  our 
birch;  severer  punishment  was  inflicted  by  a  whip 
(scutica)  or  thong  (lorum)  like  the  American  cow- 
hide ;  and  the  worst  of  all  was  the  scourge  (flagrum 
or  flagellum)  made  of  knotted  cords,  with  pieces  of 
bone  or  even  hooks  (stimuli)  inserted  to  tear  the 
flesh.  We  cannot  wonder  that  slaves  sometimes  died 
under  the  blows  of  this  horrible  instrument  That 
they  might  not  be  able  to  wince  or  struggle,  they 
were  often  hung  up  with  weights  fastened  to  their 
feet.  Another  punishment  was  the  furca,  a  V-shaped 
piece  of  wood  placed  on  the  neck  of  the  slave,  to 
the  ends  of  which  his  arms  were  tied.  Death  was 
but  rarely  inflicted,  because  of  the  value  of  a  slave 
as  a  piece  of  property ;  the  usual  method  was  by 
crucifixion,  one  of  the  most  painful  forms  that  can 
be  imagined.  If  we  may  believe  the  Roman  writers, 
the  mistresses  were  even  more  cruel  to  their  women- 
slaves  than  their  masters  were,  and  punished  them 
pitilessly  for  the  slightest  offences.  The  state  of  slaves 
was  in  one  respect  more  hopeless  in  Rome  than  in 
Greece ;  for  it  was  hardly  possible  for  them  to  make 
their  escape.  Where  there  were  many  little  states 


jv<j  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  71 

bordering  on  each  other,  it  was  not  very  difficult  for 
a  slave  to  run  away  from  one  into  another,  and 
though  in  times  of  peace  they  might  be  recovered, 
in  war-time  it  was  not  so.  Thus  we  hear  that  when 
the  Spartans  took  possession  of  Deceleia,  a  fortress 
in  Attica,  20,000  slaves  fled  to  them,  and  gained  their 
freedom.  But  in  a  great  empire  like  Rome  this  was 
impossible.  As  soon  as  a  slave  ran  away,  a  full 
description  of  him  was  placarded  in  the  neighbouring 
towns  and  proclaimed  by  the  public  crier,  a  reward 
was  offered  for  his  restoration,  and  no  one  dared  to 
help  or  hide  him.  When  he  was  caught,  he  was 
branded  on  the  forehead  with  F  for  fugitivus  (run- 
away), and  sent  to  work  for  years,  or  it  might  be  for 
life,  in  chains.  There  is  still  at  Rome  a  collar  which 
was  worn  on  the  neck  by  a  slave,  who  had  run  away, 
with  the  inscription :  "  Fugi :  tene  me :  cum  revocaveris 
me  d(omino)  m(eo)  Zoninoaccipis  solidum,"  i.e.,  about 
seventeen  shillings. 

1 6.  The  freedmen. — The  life  of  a  slave  in  the 
familia  rustica  was  thus  as  hopeless  as  we  could 
imagine.  All  his  days  he  toiled  for  the  scantiest  food 
and  the  most  miserable  lodging,  always  exposed  to 
the  blows  of  a  cruel  master,  or  a  still  more  cruel 
bailiff,  a  slave  like  himself.  His  only  chance  of  free- 
dom was  by  escaping  to  the  woods  and  becoming  a 
bandit,  or  by  joining  in  one  of  those  risings  which  were 
common  when  the  bondage  grew  too  bitter  to  be 
borne,  and  which  were  put  down  by  the  Romans,  when- 
ever they  happened,  with  merciless  severity.  But  a 
town-slave  had  a  somewhat  better  prospect.  If  his 
master  was  kindly,  the  slave  was  allowed  to  keep  his 
own  little  savings  (peculium),  and  in  time  he  might 
buy  his  freedom.  Often,  too,  an  owner  would  set 
slaves  free  either  during  his  life-time  or  by  his  will  at 
death.  If  he  had  taken  the  proper  steps  they  then 
became  Roman  citizens;  and,  though  they  were 
always  looked  down  upon  as  freedmen  (libertini),  they 
might  rise  in  time  to  any  place  in  the  state  which 


7*  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES  [CHAP. 

their  talents  might  gain  for  them.  Now  the  slaves  at 
Rome  did  not  always  belong  to  an  inferior  race,  like 
the  negroes  in  America.  They  were  often  clever  and 
well-taught  Greeks,  in  many  ways  more  able  than  their 
Roman  masters.  So,  under  the  Empire  we  find  them 
rising  to  great  wealth  and  power  by  the  favour  of  the 
Emperors.  Some  were  made  governors  of  provinces, 
others  commanded  fleets,  and  more  than  once  we  find 
the  city  of  Rome  itself,  in  the  absence  of  the  Emperor, 
placed  under  the  unlimited  power  of  one  of  his  freed- 
men.  But,  of  course,  the  great  majority  of  freedmen 
always  remained  the  poor  dependents  of  their  former 
masters,  ready  for  the  most  part  to  do  their  bidding, 
good  or  evil,  living  on  their  bounty,  or  on  the  free 
distribution  of  corn  by  the  state,  and  swelling  the 
numbers  of  the  lazy  and  debased  rabble  which 
thronged  the  streets  of  Rome.  Slavery  is  always  one 
of  the  greatest  curses  that  can  plague  a  country ;  but  in 
Rome  all  that  makes  it  such  a  curse  was  to  be  found 
at  its  height ;  and  in  many  more  ways  than  we  have 
room  now  to  tell  of,  it  proved  the  ruin  of  the  state. 

17.  Materials  of  dress. — A  Roman  of  the  time 
of  the  Republic  was  dressed  almost  entirely  in  woollen 
cloth.  Linen  was  not  unknown,  for  flax  was  grown  in 
various  parts  of  Italy,  and  it  was  spun  and  woven  into 
cloth  for  various  household  purposes.  Some  of  the 
Italian  tribes  even  wore  linen  dresses  like  the  Ionian 
Greeks  (Greek  Antiquities,  p.  28).  But  at  Rome  linen 
was  only  used  for  the  short  drawers  (subligacula)  or 
bandages  worn  round  the  loins,  and  for  pocket  hand- 
kerchiefs. Cotton  was  perhaps  only  known  in  the  form 
of  Indian  muslins  (carbasa),  which  were  imported 
in  the  later  times,  but  were  always  rare  luxuries.  Silk 
was  not  commonly  used  until  the  days  of  the  later 
Emperors.  But  even  under  the  Republic  silken  stuffs 
were  brought  from  the  East,  and  sometimes  worn  by 
women.  As  early  as  the  time  of  Aristotle,  who  died 
B.C.  322,  the  worms  were  brought  in  caravans  from 
China  to  the  island  of  Cos,  and  there  manufactured 


iv.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  73 

into  very  thin  and  almost  transparent  garments,  called 
Coae  vestes.  Afterwards  the  same  kind  of  goods  was 
made  in  Rome ;  and  imitations  of  them  in  fine  linen 
were  common.  But  down  to  the  times  of  the  Em- 
perors we  must  fancy  both  men  and  women  at  Rome, 
as  a  rule,  always  dressed  in  woollen  stuffs. 

18.  Dress  of  the  men. — The  proper  dress  of  a 
Roman  man  was  the  toga.  This  was  a  large  piece  of 
cloth,  usually  about  fifteen  feet  long  and  ten  feet  broad ; 
and  hence  it  was  not  so  square  as  the  Greek  cloak  or 
mantle.  The  corners  seem  to  have  been  rounded  off, 
so  as  to  give  it  something  of  an  oval  shape.  When  it 
was  to  be  put  on  it  was  folded  in  two  lengthwise,  but 
not  quite  along  the  middle,  so  that  one  fold  was 
broader  than  the  other.  Then  one  end  was  thrown 
over  the  left  shoulder,  so  as  nearly  to  touch  the 
ground  in  front ;  the  longer  half  was  brought  from 
behind  under  the  right  shoulder,  leaving  this  bare,  and 
again  thrown  over  the  left  shoulder,  making  a  fold  in 
front  of  the  breast,  and  leaving  a  loose  end  hanging 
down  over  the  back.  The  folds  of  the  toga  were 
arranged  with  great  care,  so  as  to  cover  the  right  side 
as  completely  as  possible,  and  to  hang  gracefully  in 
front  of  the  body.  Finally,  the  end  which  had  first 
been  hanging  down  under  the  folds  seems  to  have 
been  brought  out,  and  tucked  into  them,  so  as  to 
hold  the  whole  together,  and  to  keep  it  in  its  proper 
place.  In  the  earliest  days  this  toga  was  the  only 
garment  worn  by  citizens  over  the  subligaculum ;  it 
seems  to  have  been  worn  by  men  and  women  alike, 
both  by  day  and  by  night.  Even  in  later  times 
candidates  serving  for  office,  and  lovers  of  the  old 
customs,  like  the  younger  Cato,  were  dressed  in  this 
way.  But  HI  time  it  came  to  be  the  custom  to  wear 
under  this  a  kind  of  shirt  called  tunica.  The  tunic 
was  made  of  two  pieces  sewn  together  up  the  sides. 
It  had  either  no  sleeves  at  all,  or  very  short  ones; 
to  wear  a  tunic  with  sleeves  reaching  down  to  the 
wrists  was  looked  upon  in  the  time  of  Cicero  as  a 


74  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

sign  of  effeminacy,  though  afterwards  these  became 
usual.  Often  a  closely-fitting  vest  with  sleeves,  called 
subucula,  was  worn  under  the  tunic.  Sometimes  more 
than  one  tunic  was  used.  The  Emperor  Augustus, 
who  suffered  much  from  cold,  is  said  to  have  worn 
in  the  winter-time  four  tunics  under  his  toga,  besides 
the  subucula.  The  tunic,  like  the  toga,  was  always 
of  white  woollen  cloth ;  but  senators  had  a  broad 
purple  stripe  running  down  the  front  of  the  tunic, 
and  knights,  that  is,  wealthy  citizens,  had  two  narrow 
stripes  of  the  same  kind. 

The  toga  was  still  the  proper  out-of-door  dress  for 
the  citizen — (See  frontispiece).  It  was  always  worn  in 
the  forum  and  the  streets  of  the  city ;  its  use  was  for- 
bidden to  slaves  and  to  strangers ;  and  Roman  boys, 
who  when  they  were  young  wore  a  toga  with  a  purple 
hem  to  it  (toga  praetexta),  at  about  the  age  of  seven- 
teen were  taken  down  by  their  fathers  and  their  friends 
to  the  forum,  there  to  make  their  appearance  in  the 
white  toga,  and  to  enrol  themselves  as  Roman  citizens. 
Hence  Vergil  speaks  of  the  Romans  as  "  lords  of  the 
world,  the  people  that  wear  the  toga."  But  the  toga 
was  a  cumbrous  garment,  and  so  its  use  came  to  be 
more  and  more  limited  to  formal  occasions.  The 
poorer  classes  were  generally  content  with  the  tunic 
alone;  but  in  cold  or  wet  weather  they  wore  over 
this  the  paenula,  a  sleeveless  cloak  fastened  down  the 
front,  fitting  somewhat  close  to  the  body,  and  made 
for  the  most  part  of  a  dark  thick  cloth,  like  frieze, 
or  of  leather.  A  looser  cloak  of  the  same  kind, 
which  left  the  arms  more  free,  was  called  the  sagum  • 
this  was  worn  especially  by  soldiers,  or  by  husband- 
men. A  red  sagum  worn  by  generals  was  known 
as  the  paludamentum.  The  lacerna,  often  worn  by 
wealthier  people,  was  a  finer  kind  of  sagum,  some- 
times provided  with  a  hood  (cucullus),  and  large 
enough  to  be  worn  over  the  toga.  As  this  might 
be  of  bright  colours,  it  was  sometimes  used  merely 
for  the  sake  of  ornament ;  but  in  the  time  of  Cicero 


IV.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  75 

it  was  thought  hardly  respectable  to  do  this,  and 
Augustus  expressly  forbad  it  to  be  worn  in  the  forum. 
The  laena  was  in  shape  like  the  sagutn,  but  it  was 
properly  made  of  a  kind  of  frieze  like  the  paemda: 
in  later  times,  however,  it  seems  to  have  been  some- 
times of  fine  purple  stuff.  All  these  were  garments 
for  out  of  doors.  Indoors  nothing  seems  to  have  been 
worn  over  the  tunic,  as  a  rule,  except  at  dinner-parties, 
when  a  gay-coloured  and,  at  the  same  time,  easy 
dress  called  the  synthesis  was  used.  The  favourite 
colours  for  this  were  scarlet,  purple,  sky-blue,  violet, 
and  green. 

19.  The   dress  of  the   women. — The  proper 
dress  of  the  Roman  matron  was  the  stola.     This  was 
a  long  tunic  reaching  to  the  feet,  with  short  sleeves, 
girded  round  the  waist,  and  having  a  flounce  or  hem 
(instita)  at  the  bottom  edge.     Under  this  were  worn 
an   under   tunic   (subucula)    and   a   close-fitting  vest 
(fascia).     The  usual  wrap  for  out  of  doors  was  the 
palla.     Where  a  stola  was  worn,  the  pa/la  seems  to 
have  been  thrown  round  the  body  in  much  the  same 
way  as  the  toga.     But  girls  and  foreign  women,  who 
did  not  wear  a  stola,  arranged  their  palla  much  like 
the  Dorian  chiton  of  the  Greeks  (Greek  Antiquities, 
p.   46).      The  square  white  cloth  was  folded  along 
one  side,  so  that  about  one-third  of  it  was  double, 
then  this  was  clasped  over  the  shoulders,  so  that  the 
doubled  part  hung  down  over  the  breast ;    the  left 
side  was  closed  by  the  fold  of  the  robe,  except  that 
the  left  arm  was  allowed  to  pass  out  between  the 
top  of  the  dress  and  the  clasp :   the  right  side  was 
open  except  so  far  as  the  clasp  and  girdle  confined  it. 
But  while  the  Dorian  girls  wore  nothing  but  the  chiton, 
the  Roman  girls  always  had  also  an  under  tunic. 

20.  Coverings   for  the   head  and   feet. — In 
ordinary  life  hats  were  never  worn  either  by  men  01 
women.     On  a  journey  men  wore  broad-brimmed  hats 
(petasus,  causia)  to  keep  off  the  sun ;  and  similar 
hats  were  worn  in  the   open    theatre   for  the   same 
12* 


ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES. 


[CHAK 


Fig.  6. 


Handmaidc.i  v.-e?.r!nj  a  sleeved  siola.  and  palla,  dressing  a  bride,  who  wean 
a  tufiica  with  open  sleeves,  a  itola.  with  the  instita,  and  a  light  palla. 


IV.]  THE  ROMAN  FA  MIL  Y.  77 

purpose,  when  it  was  too  windy  to  put  up  the  usual 
awning.  These  hats  were  borrowed,  like  their  names, 
from  the  Greek.  The  native  Roman  pileus,  a  close- 
fitting  felt  cap,  appears  to  have  been  used  only  by 
slaves  and  artisans.  Women  always  wore  a  veil  when 
they  went  abroad ;  and  we  hear  of  one  Roman  who 
divorced  his  wife  for  having  appeared  without  it. 
But  it  did  not  cover  the  face,  like  the  veils  that  are 
worn  in  the  East  at  the  present  time.  It  was  probably 
from  the  frequent  exposure  to  the  sun  without  any 
protection  that  the  Romans  suffered  so  often  from 
weak  eyes,  just  as  is  the  case  at  the  present  day 
in  Egypt. 

The  shoes  (calcei)  were  an  important  article  of 
dress,  and  differed  with  the  rank  of  the  person  wear- 
ing them.  Consuls  wore  the  red  mulleus  ;  senators 
a  black  shoe  fastened  with  four  thongs,  and  adorned 
with  a  silver  crescent  on  the  instep  ;  ordinary  citizens 
a  black  shoe  not  unlike  our  own.  The  poorer  classes 
and  the  slaves  wore  wooden  shoes,  like  the  sabots 
of  the  French  peasantry,  or  the  clogs  so  common  in 
Lancashire.  But  the  calceus  was,  as  a  rule,  only  worn 
with  the  toga.  Indoors  it  was  usual  to  wear  not 
shoes,  but  sandals  (soleae) :  these  consisted  of  a  sole 
of  leather,  fastened  on  by  a  thong,  passing  between 
the  great  toe  and  the  second,  and  joining  another 
thong,  which  came  from  the  other  end  of  the  sole  round 
the  ankle.  But  at  dinner  even  these  were  laid  aside, 
and  the  guests  reclined  bare-footed  (see  p.  29). 

21.  Ornaments. — The  men  were  accustomed  to 
wear  at  most  a  finger-ring.  In  the  earliest  days  this 
was  of  iron ;  afterwards  the  senators,  and  at  a  later 
time  the  wealthy  gentlemen  (e quite s),  had  rings  of 
gold ;  and  by  the  days  of  the  Empire  it  came  to  be 
common  to  wear  many  rings  at  a  time,  set  with 
precious  stones,  which  were  often  carved  very  beauti- 
fully. These  were  employed  as  seals;  a  great  many 
of  them  have  come  down  to  us,  and  are  valued  very 
highly.  The  ladies  of  Rome,  on  the  other  hand, 


;3  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

delighted  in  the  most  various  kinds  of  ornaments, 
adorned  with  all  manner  of  jewels.  Necklaces,  ear- 
rings, bracelets,  brooches,  chains,  and  rings  displayed 
the  fortunes  of  the  wearers,  and  often  exhausted  the 
purses  of  their  husbands.  Of  precious  stones  the 
diamond  was  even  then  the  most  highly  valued,  but 
we  hear  also  of  enormous  prices  paid  for  pearls  and 
emeralds.  The  children  of  free  parents  wore  on 
their  necks  a  round  or  heart-shaped  locket  (bulla)  of 
gold,  which  was  laid  aside  with  the  toga  praetexta 
when  they  reached  the  age  of  manhood.  This  was 
intended  not  only  as  an  ornament,  but  also  as  a 
charm  to  keep  away  "  the  evil  eye ; "  and  those  who 
could  not  afford  a  golden  bulla  wore  in  its  place  a 
knot  of  leather. 

22.  The  beard  and  hair. — We  may  notice  that 
the  Romans  in  early  times  allowed  the  beard  and 
hair  to  grow.      The  first  who  brought  daily  shaving 
into   fashion   was   Scipio   Africanus ;    from   his   time 
down  to  that  of  the  Emperor  Hadrian,  it  was  usual 
to  cut  the  hair  short  and  to  shave  the  beard  and 
whiskers ;  but  Hadrian  suffered  his  beard  to  grow  in 
order  to  hide  some  scars  on  his  face,  and  his  courtiers 
followed  his    example.      To  the  custom  of  shaving 
there   were,    however,   four   exceptions :    the    poorer 
classes  were  not  able  to  spare  the   time   for  daily 
visits  to  the  barbers'  shops;   the  young  dandies  of 
Cicero's  time  preferred  their  beards  trimmed,  rather 
than  shaven,  and  hence  he  calls  them  bene  barbati  ; 
philosophers,  and  sometimes  poets,  were  accustomed 
to  wear  beards  as  a  sign  of  their  profession ;  and  all 
classes   let   their  hair   and   beard   grow   in   time    of 
mourning.       The    beard  was    trimmed    (tondere)    or 
shaven  (radere)  with  a  razor  (novaculd)  in  the  barbers' 
shops,  which  were  at  Rome,  as  they  have  always  been 
in  Italy,  favourite  places  for  a  lounge  or  a  gossip. 

23.  The    funerals.  —  The   place   of  pride   and 
honour  held  by  a  worthy  citizen  of  Rome  was  never 
shown  more  strikingly  than  in  the  rites  of  his  funeral. 


IV.]  THE  ROMAN  FAMILY.  79 

As  soon  as  the  breath  appeared  to  have  left  his  body, 
his  eyes  were  closed  by  his  nearest  relative ;  and 
all  who  were  present  joined  in  a  shout,  calling  him 
by  his  name  (condamabatur}.  If  his  silence  proved 
his  death,  the  last  duties  were  paid  to  his  corpse. 
The  undertakers  (libitinarii],  who  had  their  office  at 
the  temple  of  Venus  Libitina,  were  ordered  to  prepare 
a  funeral,  and  in  front  of  the  house  a  cypress  or  a 
pine  was  planted,  that  no  one  might  enter  it  unaware 
of  the  death,  and  the  consequent  pollution.  The 
corpse  was  laid  in  state  in  the  atrium  with  its  feet 
to  the  doorway,  robed  in  the  toga,  either  plain  or 
with  the  purple  border  of  the  magistrate,  according 
to  the  rank  of  the  deceased.  When  the  day  of  the 
funeral  had  come,  a  crier  (praeco)  summoned  the 
people  to  be  present  in  a  set  form  of  words  :  "  Yonder 
citizen  (Qm'ris)  is  dead;  if  any  one  can  follow  him 
{e.g.,  L.  Titius,  the  son  of  Lucius]  to  the  grave,  the 
hour  has  come :  he  is  now  being  borne  from  his 
house."  The  burial  took  place,  not  before  daybreak 
as  at  Athens,  but  at  any  hour  of  the  day  that  was 
convenient.  The  procession  was  opened  by  pipers, 
trumpeters,  and  horn-blowers,  playing  alternately  notes 
of  sadness,  and  rousing  strains  in  honour  of  the  dead 
man's  glory.  Then  followed  mourning-women  (prae- 
ficae),  hired  to  chant  a  dirge  (nenia)  of  lament  for 
the  departed.  In  the  later  days  actors  took  part  in 
the  solemnity,  reciting  appropriate  passages  from  poets, 
and — strangely  enough  to  modern  notions — indulging 
in  jests  and  buffoonery.  Then  came,  in  the  case  of 
a  noble,  by  far  the  most  striking  part  of  the  pro- 
cession. Of  every  ancestor  who  had  held  any  curule 
office,  there  were  preserved  in  niches  along  the  walls  of 
the  family  atrium  waxen  masks  (imagines)  blackened 
by  time,  but  still  preserving  the  memory  of  their 
features.  At  a  funeral  actors  were  hired  to  wear 
these,  and  to  walk  or  ride  in  procession,  dressed  in 
the  robes  which  each  had  worn  in  his  lifetime,  and 
followed  by  a  train  of  lictors.  It  seemed  as  though 


8o  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

the  honoured  ancestors  of  the  house  had  risen  from 
their  grave  to  escort  their  descendant  to  the  tomb. 
Then  followed  the  corpse  on  his  bier,  surrounded 
by  the  trophies  he  had  won  in  war,  or  in  peaceful 
contests.  The  children,  the  relatives,  the  friends, 
the  clients,  and  the  freedmen  attended  it  dressed  in 
mourning,  the  men  with  their  heads  veiled,  the  women 
on  this  occasion  only  appearing  without  the  veil. 
So  the  train  passed  on  to  the  Forum;  the  corpse 
was  placed  in  front  of  the  rostra;  the  figures  of  the 
ancestors  formed  a  semi-circle  around  it,  seated  on 
their  curule  chairs;  and  a  son  or  the  nearest  kins- 
man of  the  dead  man  told  of  the  exploits  of  those 
whose  faces  were  there  before  him,  and  lastly  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  departed  had  fulfilled  the  duties 
of  the  son  of  such  a  house.  The  procession  was 
formed  again,  and  moved  on  out  of  the  city-gates 
along  one  of  the  great  high-roads.  Beyond  the  walls 
of  the  city,  by  the  side  of  the  family  tomb,  the  funeral 
pile  was  already  erected.  The  corpse  was  placed 
upon  it,  sprinkled  with  odours,  and  crowned  with 
garlands,  as  the  last  token  of  affection.  Then  with 
averted  eyes  the  nearest  kinsman  applied  a  torch  to 
the  pile,  and  the  flames  rose  into  the  air  amidst  the 
wailing  of  the  mourners  and  the  notes  of  the  horns 
and  pipes.  When  the  pile  was  burnt  to  the  ground, 
the  ashes  of  the  corpse  were  gathered  and  quenched 
with  wine.  Then  they  were  dried  in  cloths,  en- 
closed in  a  funeral  urn,  and  placed  in  a  niche  in 
the  sepulchre.  The  mourners  were  sprinkled  thrice 
with  purifying  water  by  a  priest,  and  dismissed  with 
the  solemn  Ilicet  (you  may  go).  The  last  farewell 
(vale)  was  uttered,  and  the  train  returned  to  the  city. 
A  funeral  feast  (silicerniuni)  was  held  at  first  by  the 
side  of  the  grave,  but  afterwards  at  the  house  of  the 
departed;  and  games,  especially  combats  of  gladi- 
ators, were  given  in  honour  of  his  memory.  Often 
the  corpse  was  buried  in  a  coffin  (ana)  instead  of  being 
burnt ;  but  in  oiher  respects  the  rites  were  the  same. 


V.]  THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE.  81 

In  the  case  of  the  poor,  of  course,  the  funeral  was 
very  much  simpler;  they  were  buried  in  a  public 
burial-ground  on  the  Esquiline  hill,  and,  to  save  ex- 
pense, the  ceremonies  were  often  performed  at  night. 

CHAPTER  V. 
THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE. 

i.  Life  in  the  City. — We  have  tried  to  picture  to 
ourselves  the  Roman  in  his  home ;  we  have  seen  him 
at  his  meals,  his  bath,  and  his  exercise ;  we  have  tried 
to  learn  something  of  his  wife,  his  children,  and  his 
slaves.  Now  we  have  to  follow  him  out  into  his  life 
in  the  city ;  and  try  to  see  something  of  his  intercourse 
with  his  fellow-citizens.  But  we  must  not  fail  to 
notice,  in  the  first  place,  that  public  affairs  held  a 
much  less  prominent  place  in  the  life  of  a  middle-class 
citizen,  or  one  of  the  lower  orders  of  Rome,  than  they 
did  in  a  Greek  town  like  Athens.  I  do  not  say,  a  less 
important  place;  doubtless,  in  the  great  struggle  be- 
tween the  patricians  and  the  plebeians  (Primer  of 
Roman  History,  pp.  13-19),  party  spirit  ran  very  high; 
and,  as  nobles  and  commons  alike  were  contending 
for  something  which  each  cared  very  much  about,  the 
meetings  of  the  citizens  and  the  elections  of  the  magis- 
trates were,  of  course,  matters  of  the  greatest  interest. 
But  the  Romans  never  cared  much  for  discussion  in 
itself;  and  except  when  there  was  something  of  much 
importance  to  themselves  to  be  talked  about  in  the 
forum,  they  were  content  to  leave  the  general  direction 
of  affairs  to  their  leading  statesmen  (see  p.  9).  The 
law-courts,  too,  which  gave  so  much  occupation  to 
the  Athenian  citizens  (Greek  Antiquities,  p.  91),  were 
carried  on,  as  we  shall  see  afterwards,  either  without 
any  juries  at  all,  or  with  juries  taken  wholly  from  the 
richer  classes.  Then,  again,  life  in  the  city  was  much 
less  liked  than  in  Greece ;  in  the  olden  days,  especi- 
ally, a  great  number  of  the  citizens  lived  on  their 
farms  ten  or  twenty  miles  from  Rome,  and  they 


82  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

did  not  come  into  the  town  except  for  important 
business.  The  chief  occasions  which  brought  them 
there  were  the  meetings  (comitia)  of  the  people,  held 
to  elect  magistrates,  to  pass  laws,  or  to  decide  upon 
peace  or  war.  Of  these  meetings  there  were  three 
kinds :  to  one,  the  comitia  curiata,  the  patricians 
alone  were  admitted;  to  the  second,  the  comitia  cen- 
turiata,  all  the  citizens  were  allowed  to  come,  but 
when  matters  came  to  a  vote,  they  were  arranged 
in  such  a  way  that  the  older  and  richer  men  had 
much  more  weight  in  the  voting  than  the  younger 
and  poorer  men ;  to  the  third,  the  comitia  tributa, 
all  the  citizens  came,  and  they  voted  in  divisions, 
not  according  to  their  wealth  or  age,  but  according 
to  the  part  of  the  country  in  which  each  man  had 
his  land.  It  seems  that  at  first,  just  as  in  our  own 
county-ele'ctions  in  the  old  days,  no  one  was  allowed 
to  vote  even  in  the  comitia  tributa  who  had  not 
some  land  of  his  own;  but  afterwards  this  restric- 
tion was  done  away  with.  The  changes  in  the  powers 
of  these  assemblies  must  be  read  in  the  history  of 
Rome.  What  is  most  important  for  us  now  to  notice 
is  that  before  the  end  of  the  Republic,  their  chief 
real  business  came  to  lie  in  the  election  of  magistrates. 
The  Romans  unfortunately  never  hit  upon  the  notion, 
which  alone  has  made  government  by  the  people 
possible  in  any  large  country,  that  of  choosing  re- 
presentatives to  discuss  and  to  resolve  in  their  behalf. 
It  was  natural  enough,  when  the  government  of  Rome 
extended  only  over  the  city  itself  and  the  country 
a  few  miles  around  it,  for  every  citizen  to  have  the 
right  to  appear  in  person  to  speak  and  vote  in  the 
assemblies  of  the  people.  But  when  Roman  citizens 
were  to  be  found  scattered  through  every  part  of 
Italy,  it  was  plain  that  the  meetings  could  only  be 
attended  by  a  very  small  part  of  them.  Hence  power 
fell  largely  into  the  hands  of  those  who  lived  in  the 
city  or  very  near  to  it.  Then  a  practice  came  up  of 
holding  not  regular  assemblies  (comitia),  but  meetings 


v.]  THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE.  83 

(contiones),  in  which,  just  as  in  our  own  public  meet- 
ings, any  one  who  pleased,  citizen  or  foreigner,  slave 
or  free,  might  take  his  place,  and  applaud  or  hiss 
as  he  pleased.  There  were  not  many  who  had  the 
courage  of  the  younger  Scipio,  when  hooted  in  a 
contio  at  Rome.  "Be  silent,"  he  cried,  "you  step- 
children of  Italy.  Do  you  think  I  will  fear  those 
whom  I  myself  sent  in  chains  to  the  slave-market." 
And  thus  the  leading  men  of  the  time  made  it  their 
aim  to  gain  the  support  of  the  "public  opinion"  of 
the  "rabble  of  the  market-place,"  as  Cicero  calls 
them ;  and  the  greatest  affairs  of  state  were  decided 
by  the  pressure  which  men  of  influence  were  thus 
enabled  to  bring  to  bear  upon  the  authorities.  We 
can  easily  understand,  then,  that  all  serious  discussion 
of  politics  became  impossible  for  respectable  quiet 
citizens ;  and  these  were  undoubtedly  glad  when, 
under  the  Empire,  the  meetings  of  the  people  were 
deprived  of  all  real  power,  and  reduced  to  a  mere 
formality. 

2.  Elections. — But  in  the  time  of  Cicero  and 
Caesar  there  was  still  the  greatest  interest  taken  in 
elections.  The  reason  for  this  was  two-fold.  In  the 
first  place,  the  old  distinction  between  patricians  and 
plebeians  had  quite  died  out,  at  least  for  all  practical 
purposes.  A  new  class  of  nobles  (nobiles)  had  sprung 
up  consisting  of  those  whose  fathers  or  forefathers 
had  held  high  office  in  the  state.  To  be  elected 
to  one  of  the  more  important  magistracies  meant  for 
a  man  himself  admission  to  the  senate,  and  for  his 
children  admission  to  the  ranks  of  this  new  nobility. 
And  then,  again,  the  provinces  of  Rome  were  governed 
entirely  by  nobles  sent  out  by  the  senate,  after  their 
year  of  office  as  consul  or  praetor  was  over.  These 
governors,  even  when  just  and  honest,  had  many  op- 
portunities of  adding  to  their  wealth ;  and  when,  as 
was  far  too  often  the  case,  they  were  inclined  to 
extortion  and  corruption,  there  was  hardly  any  limit 
to  the  plunder  which  they  could  wring  out  of  the 


84  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

unhappy  provincials.  The  only  check  upon  them 
was  the  danger  of  a  prosecution  for  misgovernment 
after  their  return ;  but  the  courts  which  had  to  try 
them  were  so  corrupt,  that  bribery  would  almost  al- 
ways secure  the  acquittal  of  the  worst  offenders.  We 
hear  of  one  Roman  noble  who  said  that  he  wanted 
to  keep  the  government  of  his  province  for  three 
years :  in  the  first  he  would  make  enough  money  to 
pay  the  debts  he  had  incurred  in  gaining  his  office ; 
in  the  second  he  would  make  enough  to  bribe  his 
judge  to  acquit  him  after  his  return ;  in  the  third 
he  would  gain  a  fortune  to  suffice  for  the  rest  of  his 
life.  Now,  however  much  the  people  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  guided  in  politics  by  their  favourite 
leaders,  they  always  kept  in  their  own  hands  the 
elections,  for  the  sake  of  what  they  would  get  by 
them.  In  the  days  when  Rome  was  fighting  for  her 
very  life  with  enemies  like  Pyrrhus,  the  Samnites,  or 
Hannibal,  there  was  little  fear  that  the  armies  of  the 
state  should  be  entrusted  to  men  who  were  not  be- 
lieved to  be  brave  and  skilful  leaders.  Once,  indeed, 
we  hear  that  the  magistrate  who  was  presiding  at  an 
election  refused  to  accept  the  votes  of  the  people  for 
a  candidate  whom  he  thought  to  be  unfit,  and  bade 
them  go  back  and  vote  for  some  one  better.  But,  as 
the  Empire  grew,  and  her  danger  from  enemies  seemed 
to  be  less,  the  choice  of  the  people  was  decided 
mostly  by  the  popularity  of  the  candidate,  a  popu- 
larity often  gained,  or  at  least  secured  by  bribery. 
Not  long  after  the  Second  Punic  War  it  was  needful 
to  pass  a  law  against  bribing.  But  it  was  found  to  be 
quite  impossible  to  put  the  practice  down,  so  long  as 
the  rich  men  were  willing  to  buy  the  votes  of  the 
people,  and  the  people  were  willing  to  sell  them. 
Law  after  law  was  passed,  each  more  severe  than  the 
last;  but  the  only  result  was  that  more  ingenious 
devices  were  invented  to  elude  them  ;  and  bribery  was 
never  so  bad  as  in  the  closing  days  of  the  Republic. 
3.  The  canvass. — When  a  Roman  desired  elec- 


y.]  THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE,  85 

tion  to  a  magistracy,  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  go 
round  (ambire)  to  ask  for  votes.  This  was  called 
ambitus,  or  ambitio,  whence,  with  a  slight  change  of 
meaning,  our  word  ambition.  He  used  to  appear  in 
the  forum,  the  Campus  Martins,  and  other  places  of 
public  resort,  with  his  toga  newly  whitened  (Candida), 
and  hence  he  was  called  candidatus.  Accompanied 
by  friends  of  influence  (deductores),  and  followed  by  a 
number  of  clients  or  poor  citizens  (sectatores),hewent 
about  shaking  hands  with  the  voters  (prensatio),  and 
begging  for  their  support.  A  nomenclator  attended 
him  to  tell  him  the  names  of  any  that  he  might  not 
know,  so  that  he  might  be  able  to  address  them 
properly.  When  the  Roman  franchise  was  extended 
over  the  whole  of  Italy  (Primer  of  Roman  History,  pp. 
64-65),  it  became  necessary  sometimes  to  travel  through 
the  country-towns  to  secure  the  votes  of  the  citizens 
there,  and  Cicero,  when  standing  for  the  consulship, 
even  thought  of  going  for  this  purpose  to  the  colonies 
in  Cisalpine  Gaul.  Of  course  a  man  would  generally 
expect  the  support  of  his  own  fellow-townsmen  and 
neighbours,  whose  favour  he  had  courted  by  giving 
them  feasts,  and  by  similar  acts  of  liberality.  Treating 
the  citizens  generally  was  forbidden  by  several  laws, 
though  these  were  often  evaded.  But  it  was  common 
enough  to  give  shows,  games,  and  banquets  before  a 
man  formally  became  a  candidate,  often  while  he  still 
held  some  lower  office.  The  aedileship  gave  the  best 
opportunities  for  this ;  because  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
aedile  to  look  after  most  of  the  public  games  (p.  96), 
and  so  he  had  a  chance  of  spending  much  more  than 
the  state  furnished  to  defray  their  expenses;  but 
sometimes  a  praetor  did  the  same. 

4.  The  voting. — The  day  for  the  election  was 
fixed  by  the  magistrate  who  had  to  preside,  acting, 
as  a  rule,  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  senate. 
The  comitia  centuriata,  which  elected  the  higher  magis- 
trates, always  met  in  the  Campus  Martins,  outside 
the  city  walls  j  the  comitia  tributa,  which  elected  the 


86  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

tribunes  and  the  aediles,  as  well  as  the  less  im- 
portant magistrates,  usually  met  in  the  same  place, 
but  sometimes  in  the  Forum  or  the  Circus.  The 
Campus  Martius  was  divided  into  pens  (saepta),  into 
which  the  tribes  or  centuries  passed  to  record  their 
votes.  At  first  an  officer  was  placed  at  the  entrance 
of  each  pen  to  ask  the  citizens  for  whom  they  gave 
their  votes ;  and  the  votes  were  scored  to  the  candi- 
dates by  pricking  a  mark  (punctum)  on  a  tablet  over 
against  their  names,  so  that  punctttm  ferre  in  Horace 
means  "  to  gain  a  vote : "  but  afterwards  a  law  was 
made  that  votes  should  be  given  by  ballot,  and  then 
every  voter  received  a  blank  tablet  (tabella)  on  which 
he  wrote  the  name  of  the  candidate  for  whom  he 
voted.  The  votes  were  counted,  and  the  result 
announced  by  the  presiding  officer. 

5.  Honours  of  the  magistrates.  —  How  the 
Romans  came  to  have  their  different  kinds  of  magis- 
trates, and  what  the  powers  of  each  were,  has  been 
told  already  in  the  Primer  of  Roman  History.  But 
perhaps  it  will  enable  us  to  imagine  better  the  life  of 
Rome  in  the  time  of  Cicero,  if  something  is  said  here 
of  the  honours  which  the  magistrates  received.  The 
special  mark  of  magisterial  power  was  the  attendance 
of  the  lictors.  These  were  officers  who  walked  one 
by  one  before  the  magistrate  to  clear  the  way  for  him 
through  the  crowded  streets,  and  to  do  his  bidding. 
They  were  always  dressed  in  the  national  toga,  and 
in  their  left  hands,  resting  on  their  shoulders,  they 
carried  the  famous  fasces.  These  were  bundles  of 
elm-rods  fastened  around  an  axe;  and  were  at  once 
the  signs  of  the  magistrate's  right  to  flog  and  behead 
offenders,  and  the  instruments  with  which  the  punish- 
ment was  inflicted.  Only,  within  the  walls  of  the 
city  no  magistrate  was  allowed  to  have  the  power 
of  life  and  death  over  the  citizens ;  and  as  a  sign 
of  this,  the  axe  was  removed  from  the  fasces  when- 
ever the  lictors  appeared  in  the  streets  of  Rome. 
The  consuls,  and  any  one  who  was  appointed  with 


V.]  THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE.  87 

the  power  of  a  consul  (pro  consule)  to  command  an 
army  or  to  govern  a  province,  had  twelve  lictors  each. 
A  praetor  had  six,  as  a  rule,  but  when  in  Rome  he 
had  only  two.  An  aedile  was  not  attended  by  any, 
unless  he  was  acting  as  judge;  and  we  are  surprised 
to  learn  that  none  were  allowed  to  what  was  in 
some  respects  the  highest  of  Roman  magistracies,  the 
censorship.  Then  the  magistrates  had  also  their  own 
seatsof  honour — the  higher  magistrates  a  sella  curulis 
originally  a  seat  placed  in  a  car  (ci.rnts),  but  after- 
wards, as  it  became  more  difficult  to  drive  through 
the  streets  of  Rome,  simply  a  seat  of  a  particular 
form  (p.  31),  the  plebeian  tribunes  a  bench  (sub- 
sellium)  on  which  they  sat  together.  We  have  many 
stories  to  show  us  that  it  was  looked  upon  as  the 
special  right  of  a  magistrate  to  sit,  while  the  citizens 
stood  in  his  presence.  The  dress  of  the  magistrates 
has  been  spoken  of  above :  but  we  may  add  that  a 
victorious  general  in  a  triumph  not  only  wore  the 
embroidered  purple  toga  (toga  picta),  and  a  tunic 
adorned  with  figures  worked  in  gold  (tunica  palmata), 
but  also  carried  in  his  hand  an  ivory  sceptre,  having 
at  the  top  an  eagle,  the  sacred  bird  of  Jupiter,  and 
wore  on  his  head  a  chaplet  of  bay-leaves. 

6.  The  law-courts. — In  the  earliest  days  the 
king  was  looked  upon  as  the  father  of  the  nation ; 
and  he  had  the  same  power  over  all  the  citizens  that 
the  father  had  over  the  members  of  his  family.  He 
punished  wrong  acts  done  to  the  state  as  a  whole, 
or  to  some  particular  member  of  it,  according  to  his 
own  ideas  of  justice ;  and  if  his  power  over  wrong- 
doers was  in  any  way  limited,  it  was  only  by  the 
customs  of  his  forefathers,  which  had  for  him  the 
force  of  law.  He  might  allow  an  appeal  from  his 
judgment  to  the  citizens  assembled  in  public  meeting  ; 
but  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  obliged 
to  grant  the  appeal.  In  cases  of  light  offences  he 
decided  the  amount  of  the  fine  to  be  paid  to  the 
injured  citizen :  where  the  offence  was  graver,  he 


88  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

might  shut  out  the  criminal  from  the  sacred  circle 
of  the  citizens,  declare  him  devoted  (sacer)  to  the 
gods  below,  and  put  him  to  death  in  the  way  which 
seemed  to  him  best;  this  varied  with  the  nature  of 
his  crime.  He  might  call  in  the  counsel  of  some 
of  the  older  citizens  (senatores),  or  even  commit  the 
trial  of  a  case  to  deputies  chosen  from  among  them. 
There  seem  to  have  been  also  two  "  trackers  of 
murder"  (quaestores  paricidii),  whose  duty  it  was 
to  hunt  up  and  to  bring  to  trial  murderers,  and  probably 
other  criminals  also.  After  the  expulsion  of  the  kings, 
their  right  of  judging  in  trials  passed  over  to  the 
consuls ;  but  by  one  of  the  earliest  laws  of  the  Re- 
public it  was  provided  that  there  should  be  an  appeal 
to  the  whole  body  of  citizens,  whenever  the  life  of 
any  citizen  was  in  danger.  At  the  same  time  it  came 
to  be  the  custom  that  the  consul  should  assign  the 
duty  of  looking  after  trials  to  other  citizens  who  acted 
as  his  deputies.  We  must  now  take  care  to  dis- 
tinguish more  clearly  between  what  are  known  in 
modern  law  as  civil  and  criminal  offences.  The  line 
was  not  drawn  between  the  two  quite  in  the  same 
way  as  at  present,  but  we  may  say  generally  that  the 
first  group  included  offences  for  which  private  citizens 
sought  redress,  and  the  second  included  all  that  were 
punished  by  the  magistrates  as  wrongs  against  the 
state.  Now  for  criminal  offences  the  quaestores  were 
the  judges,  especially  in  cases  of  capital  charges,  that 
is,  cases  concerning  a  citizen's  caput,  his  place  in  the 
commonwealth;  for  it  must  be  remembered  that  a 
citizen  lost  his  caput  as  much  if  he  were  struck  off 
the  roll  of  citizens  as  if  his  head  were  struck  off  his 
shoulders.  It  seems  that  at  first  they  were  regarded 
as  the  representatives  of  the  royal  or  consular  au- 
thority, and  therefore  an  appeal  lay  from  them  to  the 
assembly  of  the  people.  Then  the  case  was  discussed 
at  three  several  meetings,  and  only  at  the  fourth  a 
vote  was  taken  whether  the  magistrate's  decision 
should  be  confirmed  or  not  But,  in  course  of  time, 


V.]  THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE.  89 

a  change  in  their  position  came  about.  The  process 
of  appeal  to  the  people  was  very  clumsy  and  incon- 
venient as  the  state  grew  in  numbers.  The  quaestors, 
who  were  now  elected  by  the  people,  came  to  be 
looked  upon  as  acting  on  their  behalf;  hence,  aided 
by  a  council  (consilium)  of  senators,  they  enquired 
into  any  charge  which  was  brought  before  them,  and 
gave  their  sentence  upon  it;  and  this  sentence  was 
looked  upon  as  the  judgment  of  the  people  speaking 
through  the  mouths  of  their  appointed  officers,  so  that 
there  was  no  further  appeal  from  it.  Then  followed 
another  change,  which  has  misled  many  writers  as  to 
the  real  position  of  the  quaestors.  The  penalties  im- 
posed by  the  quaestors  were  often  fines ;  and  the 
money  thus  raised  they  had  to  take  charge  of  for  the 
service  of  the  state ;  afterwards  other  sources  of 
income  were  also  committed  to  their  care ;  and,  as  the 
state  grew  richer,  their  financial  duties  became  the 
greatest  part  of  their  work.  Again,  as  wars  were  now 
waged  at  a  greater  distance,  and  the  quaestors  had  to 
be  present  with  the  armies  as  paymasters,  this  inter- 
fered with  their  duty  as  judges.  So  for  a  while  it  was 
the  custom  to  appoint  special  commissioners,  also 
called  quaestors,  to  examine  on  behalf  of  the  people 
any  important  charges,  and  to  pronounce  sentence  as 
seemed  fit  to  their  consilium.  But  this  plan  also 
became  unfit  for  general  use  as  the  numbers  of  the 
citizens  increased,  and,  instead  of  appointing  a  special 
commissioner  and  consilium  for  every  case,  standing 
commissions  (quaestiones  perpetuae)  were  esta- 
blished. The  first  of  these  was  appointed  in  B.C.  149,  to 
try  governors  who  had  oppressed  their  provinces ;  and 
afterwards  several  others  were  created  to  deal  each 
with  a  particular  kind  of  offence.  These  were  really 
representatives  of  the  general  assembly  of  the  people, 
and  so  there  was  no  appeal  from  their  verdict.  At 
first  the  members  of  the  commission  were  always 
chosen  from  the  senators ;  it  was  one  of  the  reforms  of 
Gaius  Gracchus  to  have  them  chosen  from  the  rich 


90  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

traders  who  were  called  knights  (equites) ;  but,  after 
several  changes,  it  was  finally  settled  that  they  should 
be  taken  partly  from  the  senators,  partly  from  the 
knights,  and  partly  from  a  body  of  minor  officials 
called  tribuni  aerarii.  The  president  of  the  quaestio 
was  properly  one  of  the  praetors ;  but,  as  the  number 
of  commissions  grew,  the  place  of  a  praetor  was  often 
taken  by  a  deputy,  called  the  iudex  quaestionis. 
Any  citizen  might  appear  as  a  prosecutor ;  and  it  was 
very  common  for  a  young  and  aspiring  man,  who  wished 
to  practise  eloquence  and  to  make  a  name  for  himself  in 
politics,  to  prosecute  the  governor  of  a  province  for 
extortion,  or  a  candidate  for  office  for  bribery.  The 
elder  men  confined  themselves  for  the  most  part  to 
pleading  on  behalf  of  accused  friends  and  connexions  ; 
hence  almost  all  the  speeches  of  Cicero  delivered  in 
the  law-courts,  except  those  in  which,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  career,  he  prosecuted  Verres,  are 
speeches  in  defence  of  some  one.  Any  citizen  was 
allowed  to  plead  in  defence  of  the  accused,  and  we 
sometimes  find  three  or  four  advocates  (patroni) 
taking  part  in  a  trial.  There  was  a  law  against  paying 
any  fees  to  an  advocate ;  but  it  seems  to  have  been 
often  eluded ;  and  successful  advocacy  was  a  means 
of  rising,  not  only  to  influence  and  power,  but  also  to 
considerable  wealth.  The  voting  was  taken  by  ballot ; 
the  sentence  of  the  court  was  in  most  cases  that  the 
guilty  man  should  be  "forbidden  fire  and  water,"  i.e., 
should  be  banished  from  Italy  and  cease  to  be  a 
citizen  of  Rome. 

The  standing  commissions  were,  of  course,  only 
suited  for  the  punishment  of  graver  offences.  A 
summary  jurisdiction  like  that  of  our  police-magistrates 
was  given  in  cases  of  less  importance  to  the  triumviri 
capitales.  These  were  at  first  officers  appointed  by 
the  consuls  or  the  praetor  to  look  after  the  safety  of 
the  city  by  night,  to  arrest  thieves  and  burglars,  and 
to  provide  against  the  frequent  fires.  At  this  time 
they  were  called  triumviri  iwcturni.  But  afterwards 


V.]  THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE.  91 

they  were  elected  by  the  people,  and  receive -\  judicial 
powers.  In  the  case  of  slaves  and  strangers  they 
could  punish  by  their  own  authority;  and  in  the  Forum 
there  was  a 'pillar  called  the  Columna  Maenia, 
at  which  such  criminals  were  flogged  by  the  servants 
of  the  triumvirs,  while  a  crier  stood  by  proclaiming 
their  offences.  Where  citizens  were  concerned,  or 
where  the  charges  were  graver,  they  apparently  only 
prepared  the  case  for  a  higher  tribunal,  like  our  magis- 
trates when  they  commit  a  prisoner  for  trial  at  the 
assizes. 

7.  Civil  suits. — When  one  citizen  wished  to  sue 
another  for  any  wrong  that  had  been  done  him  per- 
sonally, the  courts  and  the  proceedings  were  entirely 
different  from  those  which  have  just  been  described. 
It  would  not  be  possible  here  to  go  into  the  many 
details  of  the  Roman  private  law ;  although  the  study 
is  a  very  interesting  one,  and  also  one  of  great  im- 
portance, seeing  that  the  ideas  of  the  Romans  on 
questions  like  property,  inheritance,  and  contract 
have  influenced  very  greatly  the  laws  of  almost  every 
civilized  country.  But  perhaps  it  may  be  possible  to 
give  some  notion  of  the  way  in  which  suits  were 
generally  conducted.  We  have  seen  how,  in  criminal 
matters,  the  power  of  judgment  lay  with  the  king,  and 
then  with  the  consuls,  and  how  a  deputy  usually 
acted  on  their  behalf,  and  tried  the  whole  of  the  case. 
Now,  in  private  or  civil  actions,  the  case  was  some- 
what different.  The  action  was  divided  into  two 
different  parts.  In  the  first  part  the  presiding  magis- 
trate, who  in  later  times  was  always  the  praetor,  had 
simply  to  see  that  the  suit  was  brought  in  the  proper 
form  :  then  he  referred  it  to  an  umpire  (iudex),  who 
had  to  enquire  into  all  questions  of  fact,  and  pronounce 
his  decision  accordingly.  The  first  part  of  the  suit  was 
said  to  be  in  iure ;  the  second  in  iudicio.  In  the 
early  days  of  the  Republic  a  suitor  had  to  word  his 
claim  in  exact  accordance  with  certain  phrases  found 
in  the  laws :  for  instance,  we  read  of  a  man  who 
13* 


92  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

brought  an  action  for  damages  done  by  a  neighbour  to 
his  vines,  but  who  was  cast  in  his  suit  because  the  law 
under  which  he  was  prosecuting  did  not  mention  vines, 
but  trees.  Now,  the  knowledge  of  the  words  of  the  laws, 
and  therefore  of  the  proper  phrases  for  actions,  was  at 
first  kept  secret  by  the  patricians ;  so  that  the  commons 
could  not  even  sue  for  redress  in  the  legal  form  with- 
out obtaining  their  assistance.  This  lasted  for  two 
hundred  years  after  the  expulsion  of  the  kings ;  and 
was  only  put  a  stop  to  when  Gnaeus  Flavins,  the  clerk 
of  the  famous  censor  Appius  Claudius,  with  or  without 
his  master's  approval,  wrote  out  a  list  of  the  proper 
forms,  and  published  them  in  the  forum.  Not  long 
after  this  time  there  was  a  great  reform  in  the  manner 
of  trying  cases;  and  whereas  the  plaintiff  had  pre- 
viously been  obliged  to  choose  out  the  proper  state- 
ment of  his  case  (legis  actio)  on  his  own  responsibility, 
now  the  praetor  on  hearing  the  complaint  would 
himself  put  the  issue,  as  we  should  call  it,  into  a 
formula,  so  that  it  was  fit  for  trial.  The  oldest  form 
of  procedure  was  said  to  be  Sacramento;  in  this  the 
two  parties  each  staked  in  the  hands  of  the  court 
a  certain  sum,  varying  with  the  amount  of  the  property 
in  dispute,  as  a  pledge  (sacramentum)  that  his  state- 
ment was  true.  Then  the  trial  went  on,  and  the 
umpire  gave  his  decision  :  the  winner  recovered  his 
deposit,  but  the  loser  forfeited  his,  which  went  to 
pay  the  expenses  of  the  court.  Other  methods  were 
also  in  use,  but  the  main  feature  of  all  is  that  the 
presiding  magistrate  lays  down  the  law  which  bears 
upon  the  case,  and  sees  that  the  suit  is  in  proper 
shape  for  trial,  and  then  refers  it  to  an  umpire  to 
decide  which  of  the  parties  is  right  in  his  statements 
as  to  the  facts.  Sometimes,  when  the  case  was  a 
difficult  one,  the  praetor  would  send  it  not  before 
a  single  umpire,  but  before  the  court  of  the  Hundred 
(centumviri),  who  seem  to  have  been  elected  by  the 
people  to  help  him  in  important  cases.  When  a 
Roman  citizen  was  engaged  in  a  suit  with  a  foreigner, 


V.]  THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE,  93 

it  was  brought  before  a  small  special  court,  called 
the  recuperatores:  their  proceedings  were  free  from 
all  the  tedious  formalities  of  an  ordinary  suit ;  and  so 
it  often  happened  that  Roman  citizens  preferred  to 
submit  their  suits  to  this  body  of  judges. 

It  will  be  seen  from  what  has  been  said  that  the 
Roman  law-courts  had  all  that  practical  character 
which  we  might  have  expected  from  the  nature  of  the 
people.  In  great  criminal  cases  undoubtedly  they  often 
broke  down  badly.  The  juries  were  either  unduly 
lenient,  because  they  were  taken  from  the  same  class 
as  the  accused ;  or  else  they  were  open  to  bribes  in 
the  most  unblushing  fashion;  or  often  they  were 
entirely  influenced  by  factious  political  motives.  The 
civil  courts,  on  the  other  hand,  when  once  they  had 
been  freed  from  the  unjust  advantages  afforded  to  the 
patricians,  seem  to  have  worked  thoroughly  well. 
The  law  which  they  dispensed  was  clear  and  precise, 
and  if  sometimes  it  was  over  formal,  it  was  also 
usually  impartial.  To  the  upper  classes,  from  whom 
the  magistrates,  the  umpires,  and  the  advocates  all 
were  taken,  these  courts  were  an  excellent  induce- 
ment to  train  themselves  in  the  knowledge  of  law 
and  in  the  practice  of  public  speaking.  But  the 
poorer  classes  were  never  likely  to  take  any  share 
in  them ;  and  so  they  missed  entirely  what  was  one 
of  the  most  powerful  means  of  education  in  Greece, 
and  especially  at  Athens. 

We  now  pass  on  to  speak  of  that  form  of  public 
life  which  alone  retained  its  charms  for  the  humbler 
subjects  of  the  Emperors.  Juvenal  says  of  the  people 
of  his  time  :  "  The  nation  which  once  gave  commands, 
magistracies,  armies,  and  every  thing  else,  now  holds 
itself  in,  and  is  only  anxious  and  eager  for  two  things, 
bread  and  the  games  of  the  Circus."  To  the  games 
we  now  will  turn. 

8.  Public  games. — Games  of  some  sort  certainly 
existed  in  Rome  from  the  earliest  times,  though  the 
stories,  which  are  told  about  the  games  cf  Romulus, 


94  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

cannot  be  true  in  the  form  in  which  we  have  them. 
But  the  games  of  the  Circus  cannot  have  been  held 
before  the  time  of  Tarquinius  Priscus ;  for  it  was  he 
who  drained  the  swampy  valley  between  the  Palatine 
and  the  Aventine,  and  began  to  form  the  Circus 
there;  before  his  time  there  was  no  place  in  Rome 
suited  for  races  and  other  sports  of  the  kind.  Like 
many  other  of  his  changes,  the  games  seem  to  have 
been  brought  to  Rome  from  their  northern  neighbours 
in  Etruria,  though  much  was  apparently  added  in 
imitation  of  the  Greek  festivals.  It  seems  odd  to 
us  to  find  that  they  were  intended  at  first  as  a  means 
of  propitiating  the  gods ;  and  were  observed  especially 
in  honour  of  the  powers  of  earth,  who  could  grant 
or  refuse  health  to  men  and  productiveness  to  crops 
and  cattle.  Hence  we  find  them  often  performed  in 
times  of  plague  or  famine. 

The  great  Circus  at  Rome  was  about  600  yards 
in  length  and  200  in  width  :  round  the  whole  of  it 
were  rows  of  seats  for  spectators,  the  front  rows  built 
of  stone,  and  reserved  for  senators  and  knights ; 
those  behind  of  wood,  and  free  to  all  the  citizens. 
In  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar  there  was  room  for 
150,000  people;  but  afterwards,  when  the  Circus 
.was  enlarged  after  it  had  been  destroyed  by  fire,  we 
hear  of  250,000  persons  watching  the  games  at  once. 
At  one  end  of  the  Circus  were  dens  or  stalls 
(carceres)  from  which  the  chariots  were  let  out  at 
the  same  time  to  start  in  the  race :  down  the  centre 
ran  a  low  wall  (spina)  adorned  with  statues,  pillars, 
altars,  and  shrines :  at  each  end  was  a  turning-post 
(meta),  consisting  of  three  columns  close  together, 
round  which  the  chariots  raced.  The  usual  course 
for  each  heat  (missus)  was  seven  laps  of  the  Circus ; 
i.e.,  somewhat  more  than  three  miles;  and  at  each 
end  of  the  spina  were  seven  large  egg-shaped  balls 
placed  on  a  column,  and  taken  down  one  by  one 
as  the  laps  were  completed,  so  that  the  spectators 
might  know  at  once  how  many  were  yet  remaining. 


V-] 


THE  ROMAN'S  2>UELlC  LIFE. 


95 


96  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

The  games  introduced  by  Tarquinius  Priscus  were 
in  honour  of  the  deities  to  whom  he  built  the  great 
temple  on  the  Capitol  (p.  118),  Jupiter,  Juno,  and 
Minerva :  these  were  called  the  Ludi  Roman!  or  the 
Ludi  Magni,  and  were  held  at  first  for  one  day,  after- 
wards for  five  days,  beginning  on  September  4th. 
But  besides  these  there  were  many  other  games  in 
honour  of  various  gods  and  goddesses,  the  most  im- 
portant being  the  Megalesia  (p.  119)  at  the  beginning 
and  the  Floralia  towards  the  end  of  April,  and  the 
Ludi  Apollinares  early  in  July.  In  the  time  of 
Augustus  there  were  regular  public  games  on  66 
days  in  the  year;  but  under  the  later  Emperors  the 
duration  and  the  number  of  the  festivals  were  so 
increased  that  they  extended  over  135  days  in  the 
time  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  Besides  these  there 
were  games  vowed  by  the  generals  of  the  state  for 
some  special  successes  (ludi  votivi),  or  ordered  by 
the  senate  in  times  of  danger  or  sickness  (ludi 
imperativi) ;  and  also  funeral  games,  given  by  rela- 
tions on  the  death  of  an  eminent  man.  So  that 
the  Romans  had  abundant  means  of  obtaining  the 
pleasure  in  which  they  delighted.  When  games  of 
unusual  splendour  were  expected,  the  city  would  be 
thronged  by  visitors  from  every  part  of  Italy,  and 
even  from  distant  provinces  :  at  the  triumph  of  Julius 
Csesar,  the  throng  was  so  great  that  many  were 
crushed  to  death.  The  public  games  may  be  divided 
into  three  kinds  :  i,  The  Ludi  Circenses,  games  of 
the  Circus;  2,  Ludi  Scaenici,  the  entertainments  of 
the  Theatre ;  3,  Munera  Gladiatoria,  shows  of 
gladiators,  commonly  given  in  the  Amphitheatre. 

9.  Games  of  the  Circus. — Let  us  try  to  picture 
to  ourselves  the  scene  in  the  circus  on  one  of  the 
days  of  the  Roman  games  in  the  time  of  the  Empire. 
Notice  has  been  duly  given  long  beforehand.  The 
law-courts  are  closed,  and  the  senate  has  adjourned. 
Some  of  the  lawyers  and  statesmen  have  gladly  followed 
the  example  of  Cicero,  and  exchanged  the  unwhole- 


v.]  THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE.  97 

some  air  of  a  Roman  September  for  the  fresh  breezes 
of  Tusculum  or  Praeneste  and  a  welcome  country 
holiday.  But  their  places  are  more  than  filled  by 
the  crowds  of  strangers.  Long  before  daybreak  there 
are  streams  of  people  pouring  into  the  upper  seats 
of  the  circus ;  for  vast  as  it  is,  it  is  far  too  small  for 
the  numbers  that  throng  to  see  the  games.  Women 
and  men  sit  side  by  side,  but  no  slave  is  allowed 
to  enter;  for  every  one  present  is  expected  to  appear 
in  the  toga  of  the  Roman  citizen.  The  hours  of 
waiting  are  spent  in  eager  talk  about  the  chances  of 
the  various  stables ;  the  latest  reports  about  the  health 
of  the  horses  and  the  drivers  pass  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
and  betting  is  running  high.  Here  and  there  there 
are  some  who  are  thinking  ruefully  that  it  will  not 
be  for  them  to  watch  the  thrilling  struggle.  They 
are  the  locarii,  needy  fellows  who  have  come  betimes 
to  secure  a  good  place,  which  presently  they  may 
sell  to  some  late-rising  wealthier  citizen,  for  a  sum 
large  enough  to  keep  them  through  the  week.  As 
the  crowds  increase  the  designatores  have  enough  to 
do  to  usher  all  into  their  proper  places ;  and  we  may 
perhaps  see  some  unfortunate  who  had  ventured  to 
intrude  into  the  seats  reserved  for  the  knights,  driven, 
like  the  man  of  whom  Martial  tells  us,  from  place  to 
place,  till  at  last  he  finds  bare  standing-room  on  the 
topmost  of  the  many  rows.  At  last  the  seats  are 
packed  to  their  utmost;  even  the  lowest  row,  the 
podium,  with  its  places  of  honour  for  senators,  magis- 
trates, Vestal  Virgins,  foreign  ambassadors,  and  other 
distinguished  persons,  is  filled  from  end  to  end.  The 
sound  of  distant  music  reaches  the  eager  throngs. 
The  gods  are  coming  from  their  Capitoline  height 
to  share  the  sports  of  the  Senate  and  people  of  Rome. 
Through  the  main  gate  of  the  circus,  close  by  the 
carceres,  a  band  of  musicians  enters  the  vast  arena. 
Close  behind  them,  heading  the  procession  (pompa), 
of  which  he  has  the  charge  this  day,  follows  the 
consul  in  his  chariot.  He  wears  the  dress  sacred 


98  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

to  Capitoline  Jove,  and  only  assumed  in  his  honour 
on  festal  days  like  these,  or  when  the  long  triumph 
mounts  from  the  Forum  to  his  temple  (p.  1 18).  Round 
his  car  are  his  clients  in  snow-white  togas.  Then 
follow  the  younger  citizens  in  troops  of  cavalry  or 
companies  of  infantry;  the  various  performers  who 
are  to  take  a  part  in  the  sports ;  the  chariots,  the 
singers,  and  the  priests.  And  crowning  the  whole 
array  we  have  the  images  of  the  gods  and  goddesses. 
Some  are  borne  aloft  on  biers  (fercula),  others  ride 
in  the  sacred  chariots  (tensae)  drawn  by  horses,  mules, 
or  elephants ;  before  them  incense  rises  from  golden 
and  silver  censers.  Their  appearance  is  the  signal 
for  shouts  of  applause  and  invoking  cries,  directed 
according  to  the  pursuits  or  the  caprices  of  the  various 
members  of  the  crowd.  But  if  the  Emperor  is  present 
— and  he  rarely  fails  to  be — the  welcome  which  he 
receives,  if  not  less  hearty,  is  more  deliberately  regu- 
lated :  the  form  and  the  time  of  applause  are  set 
by  officers  stationed  at  intervals  throughout  the  vast 
assembly,  who  raise  the  bidden  shout,  and  repeat  it 
as  often  as  previously  directed.  Yet  for  all  official 
precautions,  it  may  be  that  less  pleasing  sounds  are 
mingled  with  the  thunders  of  acclaim :  for  the  voice 
of  freedom  finds  a  vent  securely  from  the  midst  of 
such  crowded  masses;  and  when  face  to  face  with 
his  people  at  the  games  of  the  Circus  the  Emperor 
may  chance  to  hear  some  expression  of  their  feelings, 
which  would  not  have  otherwise  reached  his  ears. 
But  now  those  who  entered  in  procession  have  been 
marshalled  to  their  proper  seats,  and  all  eyes  are 
fixed  upon  the  consul  as  he  sits  in  his  elevated 
box.  Horsemen  have  been  riding  up  and  down  in 
the  arena  to  see  that  all  is  in  readiness,  and  to  an- 
nounce to  the  spectators  the  beginning  of  the  sports. 
Now  the  consul  drops  to  the  ground  a  napkin 
(mappa) ;  and  at  once  the  doors  of  the  carcercs  are 
opened.  Out  rush  four  four-horse  chariots  and  dash 
along  the  arena.  Two  horses  in  each  are  yoked; 


v.]  THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIPE.  9? 

two  others  are  attached  by  traces.  The  chariots  are 
two-wheeled,  light  and  small.  The  drivers  stand 
upright  in  them,  leaning  against  the  reins,  which  pass 
around  their  backs,  but  we  notice  at  the  girdle  of 
each  a  knife,  by  which  the  reins  can  be  cut  in  case 
of  accident.  The  dress  of  the  drivers,  the  body  of 
the  cars,  and  the  trappings  of  the  horses  are  all  of 
a  colour,  which  differs  in  the  case  of  each,  and  the 
shouts  of  the  spectators  are  loud  in  favour  of  one 
or  another  of  the  colours.  There  are  four  great 
racing  establishments  in  Rome,  owned  by  different 
companies ;  and  from  these  the  magistrate  who  gives 
the  games  has  to  hire  all  that  is  needed.  The  two 
oldest  are  those  which  have  liveries  of  white  (albata) 
and  red  (russata)  respectively ;  the  green  (prasina) 
and  blue  (veneta)  have  been  added  afterwards  ;  but 
now  the  green  is  the  favourite,  and  we  can  tell  from 
the  shouts  that  its  party  (factio)  is  much  the  most 
numerous.  Meanwhile  the  chariots  are  speeding  on 
their  course,  with  the  spina  on  their  left  hand,  each 
aiming  to  secure  or  to  retain  the  advantage  of  th^ 
innermost  station.  The  greatest  test  of  skill  is  when 
the  meta  has  to  be  rounded;  to  give  it  too  wide  a 
berth  would  be  to  lose  time  and  distance;  to  take 
it  too  closely  would  mean  to  run  the  risk  of  a  fate 
like  that  which  Orestes  is  reported  in  the  Electra  of 
Sophocles  to  have  suffered,  when, 

"Just  as  his  horse  was  turning,  unawares 
He  strikes  the  furthest  pillar,  breaks  the  spokes 
Right  at  his  axle's  centre,  and  slips  down 
From  out  his  chariot,  and  is  dragged  along 
With  reins  dissevered. " 

As  the  chariots  successfully  round  it  again  and  again 
— thirteen  times  has  the  feat  to  be  accomplished — the 
shouts  of  the  partisans  ring  out  in  triumph.  At  last 
the  seventh  round  is  all  but  completed ,  the  charioteers 
hanging  over  their  horses  urge  them  on  with  lashes 
and  wild  cries ;  the  excitement  rises  to  its  height  ; 
with  a  frantic  rush  the  white  line  (alba  linea)  drawn 


loo  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

across  the  arena  is  reached ;  and  the  victorious  driver 
is  conducted  to  the  president  of  the  games  to  receive 
his  substantial  reward,  to  ride  in  triumph  before  the 
eyes  of  the  applauding  multitudes,  and  to  pass  out  at 
the  other  end  of  the  circus  at  the  gate  reserved  for  the 
victors.  Another  missus  follows,  and  another,  and 
yet  another ;  the  crowds  look  on  unwearied,  although 
they  are  sitting  for  the  most  part  bare-headed  in  the 
rays  of  an  Italian  autumn's  sun.  Broad  hats  were 
only  allowed  after  the  time  of  Caligula.  At  noon  there 
is  a  longer  break ;  and  they  hurry  to  the  booths  which 
are  found  in  the  colonnade  that  runs  along  at  the  back 
of  the  topmost  rows,  to  get  some  food  and  drink,  unless 
indeed  this  happens  to  be  one  of  the  days  on  which 
the  Emperor,  or  the  magistrate  who  is  presiding  at  the 
games,  has  provided  refreshments  to  be  distributed 
among  the  spectators  by  the  hands  of  thousands  of 
slaves.  Then  the  racing  begins  again,  until  the 
regular  number  of  twenty-five  courses  has  been  run. 
If  we  remember  that  each  was  more  than  three  miles 
in  length,  and  that  there  must  have  been  some  interval 
between  them,  we  can  easily  believe  that  the  shadows 
of  evening  are  drawing  on  before  the  crowds  begin  to 
disperse.  Indeed  we  can  hardly  see  how  it  was 
possible  for  Domitian  to  give,  as  we  are  told  he  did, 
a  hundred  courses  in  a  day,  even  though  the  number 
of  rounds  was  shortened  from  seven  to  five. 

Such  is  a  picture  of  the  chariot-races  of  the  circus. 
But  these  were  by  no  means  the  only  amusements 
provided  there.  Sometimes  the  day  was  varied  by 
athletic  contests,  foot-races,  leaping,  wrestling,  quoiting, 
throwing,  and  boxing.  Sometimes  the  vast  arena  was 
flooded,  and  sea-fights  were  represented .  in  mimic 
show.  But  the  amusement  of  all  the  most  welcome  to 
the  people  was  the  venatio,  or  hunt,  in  which  wild 
beasts  were  matched  against  each  other,  or  against 
men  trained  to  fight  them.  Every  corner  of  the 
empire  was  ransacked  to  supply  its  unfamiliar  animals, 
and  the  numbers  exhibited  almost  pass  belief.  Pom- 


V.]  THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE.  101 

peius,  in  his  second  consulship,  provided  500  lions 
and  410  panthers  and  leopards  for  five  days  of  games; 
Julius  Caesar  turned  400  lions  into  the  arena  at  once ; 
and  Augustus,  on  the  famous  tablet  which  contains 
the  history  of  his  reign,  records  it  among  his  exploits 
that  he  had  had  3,500  elephants  killed  in  the  circus. 

10.  The  Theatre. — Compared  with  the  mad 
devotion  to  the  games  of  the  Circus,  the  theatre  was 
never  much  cared  for  at  Rome ;  and  any  attractions 
that  it  had  were  not  of  the  highest  character.  There 
were  doubtless  from  the  first  dramatic  entertainments 
at  Rome,  consisting  chiefly  of  extempore  witticisms 
directed  at  each  other  by  the  actors,  who  were  gener- 
ally young  men  of  good  position  ;  and  these  continued 
to  be  the  staple  of  the  popular  plays  called  the 
Atellan  farces,  brought  to  Rome  from  Campania,  and 
played  by  none  but  citizens.  The  first  professional 
actors  are  said  to  have  been  brought  from  Etruria  in 
B.C.  364;  but  these  confined  themselves  to  fantastic 
dances  and  gestures,  performed  to  the  music  of  the 
flute,  without  any  songs  or  dialogues.  A  Greek 
freedman,  named  Livius  Andronicus,  about  120  years 
after  this,  introduced  the  first  regular  plays,  which  he 
translated  or  adapted  from  the  Greek.  Like  all  the 
play-wrights  of  his  time,  he  took  part  in  the  acting 
himself.  The  plays  were  divided  into  two  parts,  the 
diverbia,  or  dialogues  and  speeches,  which  were  re- 
cited, and  the  cantica  or  lyrical  parts,  which  were  sung 
to  music.  We  are  told  that  Livius  was  so  frequently 
encored  that  he  lost  his  voice ;  so  he  obtained  per- 
mission of  the  people  to  station  a  slave  by  the  flute- 
player,  who  was  to  sing  the  cantica,  while  he  himself 
accompanied  them  with  the  proper  gesticulations. 
The  custom  that  thus  arose  remained  on  the  Roman 
stage;  and  the  actors  never  sang  the  cantica  them- 
selves, but  only  appeared  to  be  singing  them,  while 
the  real  performer  was  hidden  at  the  side  of  the  stage. 
Tragedies  were  never  much  liked  at  Rome,  and  under 
the  Empire  they  appear  to  have  been  endured  only 


102  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

because  of  the  opportunity  which  they  afforded  for  the 
most  profuse,  and  often  the  most  ill-placed  splendour. 
Comedies  were  somewhat  more  popular ;  but  there 
are  two  facts  about  them  which  seem  to  us  surprising. 
In  the  first  place,  the  plays  which  were  adapted  from 
Greek  writers,  and  which  preserved  the  Greek  charac- 
ters, manners,  and  scenes — the  comoediae  palliatae, 
as  they  were  called,  from  the  Greek  pallium,  in  which 
their  characters  were  dressed — were  always  much 
more  liked  than  the  comoediae  togatae,  which  dealt 
with  the  manners  of  Rome.  Secondly,  no  later  rivals 
ever  surpassed  in  popular  favour  one  of  the  very 
earliest  of  the  comedians,  Titus  Maccius  Plautus,  and 
only  one,  Publius  Terentius,  even  approached  him. 
But  there  was  another  kind  of  entertainment  in  the 
theatre,  much  more  popular  than  plays.  These  were 
the  pantomimes,  consisting  wholly  of  music  and  danc 
ing.  A  single  actor  would  undertake  to  represent  by 
his  movements  and  gestures  the  whole  of  a  story, 
sometimes  long  and  complicated,  and  often  of  a  very 
immoral  character.  The  leading  actors  in  this  kind  of 
show  were  great  popular  favourites,  and  received 
large  sums  for  their  performances.  Besides  these 
there  were  all  manner  of  jugglers,  rope-dancers, 
acrobats,  clowns,  ventriloquists,  and  the  like ;  and  in 
the  midst  of  a  tragedy  the  audience  would  insist  upon 
the  introduction  of  a  popular  performing  bear  or  a 
pair  of  boxers. 

The  Roman  theatre  at  first  was  nothing  but  a  rude 
kind  of  platform  erected  in  the  open  air,  where  those 
who  had  not  brought  stools  from  home,  as  they  did  to 
the  pit  of  the  Globe  or  the  Blackfriars  theatre  when 
the  plays  of  Shakspere  were  first  produced,  had  to 
stand  through  the  performance  as  patiently  as  they 
might.  Afterwards  wooden  theatres  were  erected  for 
the  various  games ;  but  these  were  taken  down  again 
when  the  performances  were  over.  It  was  not  till  the 
very  close  of  the  Republic,  in  the  year  B.C.  55,  that 
the  first  stone  theatre  was  erected  by  Pompeius.  Two 


V.]  THE  ROMAN'S  PUBLIC  LIFE.  103 

more  followed  in  the  reign  of  Augustus ;  but  these 
sufficed  for  the  needs  of  a  population  which  probably 
numbered  not  much  less  than  a  million  souls.  It  is 
true  that  the  smallest  of  them  held  20,000  spectators 
at  a  time,  and  the  largest  40,000.  The  seats  were 
assigned  to  the  citizens  according  to  their  ranks ;  the 
orchestra — the  "dancing  place"  of  the  chorus  in  a 
Greek  theatre — to  the  senators,  the  fourteen  lowest 
rows  to  the  knights,  the  rest  to  ordinary  citizens ;  but 
admission  was  free  to  all.  The  theatre  was  open  to 
the  sky,  but  the  sun  was  kept  off  by  awnings  (vela), 
and  the  air  was  cooled  and  scented  by  fragrant  spray. 
The  actors  were  not  honoured  artists  as  at  Athens ;  as 
a  rule  they  were  slaves,  belonging  to  the  master  of  the 
troupe  (dominus  gregis),  from  whom  the  presiding 
magistrate  hired  them.  At  the  same  time  we  find 
exceptions  to  this  in  the  case  of  men  like  the  comic 
actor  Roscius  and  the  tragedian  ^Esopus,  both  men  of 
wealth,  and  friends  of  Cicero.  An  actor  needed  to  be 
carefully  trained  and  educated,  and  therefore,  if  a 
slave,  he  was  often  of  great  value  to  his  master. 

n.  Gladiators. — Almost  all  the  entertainments 
spoken  of  above  were  brought  into  Rome  from  Greece, 
and  the  favourite  performers  were  Greeks.  But  there 
was  another  form  of  amusement,  to  which  the  people 
were  passionately  devoted  (although  no  Roman  author 
speaks  of  it  with  any  favour),  which  was  wholly  of 
Italian  growth.  This  consisted  in  the  shows  of  gladi- 
ators. It  is  probable  that  these  arose  from  the  custom 
of  sacrificing  slaves  at  the  tombs  of  their  masters  :  the 
slaves  were  afterwards  allowed  to  fight  with  each  other 
for  their  lives ;  and,  finally,  they  were  trained  for  the 
purpose  by  men  who  kept  large  bodies  of  them  as  a 
speculation,  and  let  them  out  to  any  one  who  wanted 
to  give  a  show.  The  custom  was  brought  to  Rome 
from  Etruria,  where  the  wealth  of  the  nobles  had  long 
enabled  them  to  indulge  in  every  kind  of  cruel  and 
licentious  sport.  At  first  it  was  limited  to  funerals ; 
and  the  gladiators  fought  in  the  forum.  But,  as  the 


104  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

taste  for  these  horrible  shows  increased,  and  the  num- 
ber of  the  gladiators  fighting  at  a  time  grew  larger,  the 
Circus  v/as  used  for  the  purpose ;  and  now  it  became 
the  custom  for  any  one  who  wished  to  gain  favour 
with  the  people  to  indulge  them  with  a  series  of  com- 
bats. The  Circus,  however,  was  ill  adapted  by  its 
shape  for  anything  but  races ;  so,  in  the  time  of  Julius 
Caesar,  an  ingenious  plan  was  devised.  Two  large 
theatres  of  wood  were  erected  side  by  side  close 
together :  when  they  had  served  for  their  purpose,  one 
of  them  was  turned  entirely  round  on  pivots,  the 
audience  all  remaining  in  their  places,  and  brought  to 
meet  the  other,  so  that  the  seats  now  formed  an  oval 
tier  round  an  arena  in  the  centre.  This  was  called  an 
amphitheatre,  and  was  excellently  suited  for  gladia- 
torial shows.  Other  amphitheatres  were  afterwards  built 
in  Rome  on  the  plan  of  the  building  thus  produced;  and 
one  of  them,  the  famous  Colosseum,  was  one  of  the 
vastest  piles  ever  raised  by  human  hands.  This  was 
erected  in  the  reigns  of  Vespasian,  Titus,  and  Domi- 
tian,  and  must  have  held  some  90,000  spectators.  It 
is  now  greatly  damaged  by  time,  by  earthquakes,  and 
most  of  all  by  the  reckless  spoliations  of  the  Roman 
Popes  and  nobles  in  the  middle  ages;  but  it  still 
remains,  perhaps  the  most  impressive  of  all  the  world's 
great  ruins.  The  description  already  given  of  a  day 
in  the  Circus,  will  serve  in  most  respects  for  a  picture 
of  a  gladiatorial  show.  There  were  the  same  crowded 
seats,  the  same  pomp  and  splendour,  the  same  wild 
excitement.  The  gladiators  were  of  various  kinds, 
named  according  to  the  manner  in  which  they  were 
armed  and  fought.  One  of  the  favourite  contests  was 
between  a  retiarius,  who  had  no  defensive  armour, 
but  was  armed  with  a  net  in  which  to  catch  his 
opponent,  and  a  three-pronged  fork  with  which  to 
spear  him  when  entangled  in  the  meshes,  and  a 
gladiator  fully  armed  after  the  fashion  of  the  Gauls  or 
the  Samnites,  who  had  to  pursue  him  if  he  missed  his 
cast,  and  to  kill  him  before  he  could  repeat  it.  As  a 


VI.]  THE  ROMAN'S  RELIGION.  105 

rule  they  fought  in  pairs ;  but  sometimes  whole  bands 
were  matched  against  each  other.  When  a  gladiator 
was  disarmed  or  wounded,  his  fate  was  in  the  hands 
of  the  spectators.  If  he  had  fought  well  and  bravely, 
they  signified  by  applause  and  by  waving  of  handker- 
chiefs their  wish  that  he  should  be  spared  ;  but,  if  they 
were  in  a  cruel  mood,  or  if  he  had  in  any  way  failed 
to  please  them,  they  pointed  downwards  with  their 
thumbs  in  silence,  and  he  received  the  finishing 
blow. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  ROMAN'S  RELIGION. 

i.  It  is  always  hard  to  give  a  true  account  of  the 
religious  beliefs  and  feelings  of  any  nation.  There 
is  often  so  much  that  is  strange  to  us,  that  we  are 
in  danger  of  failing  altogether  to  see  what  there  is 
good  and  true  under  the  new  and,  it  may  be,  repulsive 
forms  of  creed  and  practices.  But  it  is  especially 
hard  in  the  case  of  the  Romans ;  for  all  their  writers, 
whose  works  remain  to  us,  lived  at  a  time  when  the 
nation  had  been  long  and  deeply  influenced  by  the 
teaching  of  the  Greeks.  Now  the  Greeks  and  the 
Romans  had  come  to  have  very  different  ways  of 
thinking  about  the  unseen  powers.  It  is  true  that 
there  was  a  time  in  their  early  common  home  when 
they  had  had  the  same  gods  to  worship,  and  had 
doubtless  worshipped  them  in  much  the  same  fashion. 
But  since  those  days  many  hundreds  of  years  had 
passed  away.  The  two  nations  had  been  living  in 
different  lands ;  their  ways  of  life  had  been  dif- 
ferent in  many  respects ;  they  had  had  very  different 
neighbours.  And  so,  when  we  attempt  to  conceive 
for  ourselves  the  earliest  beliefs  of  the  Romans,  not 
so  much  from  the  books  of  their  classical  writers,  as 
from  the  institutions  and  practices  which  still  were 
lingering  among  them,  we  find  them  to  have  been 
quite  other  than  those  which  existed  among  the  Greeks. 
Perhaps  it  will  be  best  here  to  try  to  sketch  the 


106  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

history  of  their  growth  and  changes;  we  shall  thus 
be  able  to  see  most  easily  how  much  belonged  to 
the  Roman  people  originally,  and  how  much  was 
afterwards  taught  them  by  the  poets  and  thinkers  of 
Greece. 

2.    The   earliest    gods. — The  first    conception 
which  men  of  the  Aryan  race  had  about  the  unseen 
powers,   seems  to  have  been  drawn  from  the  great 
expanse  of  heaven.      In  this  they  believed  they  saw 
the  abode,  and  indeed  in  a  certain  way,  the  actual 
form  of  the   power  which   ruled   the  world.      They 
'called  it  Dyaus,  "'the  bright  one,"  a  word  which  in 
Greek  came  to  be  Zeus,  and  in  Latin  Jovis.    But  this 
power  they  thought  of  usually  as  the  Father;  and 
so  both  in  India,  in  Greece,  and  in  Germany  it  was 
common  to  add  the  word  "  Father"  to  his  name;  and 
in  Italy  the  two  words  grew  together,  so  that  he  was 
always  spoken  of  as  Juppiter  (Jovi-pater)  or  afterwards 
as  Jupiter.     We  cannot  be  sure  about  the  thoughts 
of  a  time  which  was  much  earlier  than  any  written 
records;   but  so  far  as  we  can  see  at  present,  men 
did  not  at  first  believe  in  many  different  gods,  but 
only  in  many  different  forms  of  the  action  of  the  one 
great  power.      In  the  earliest  days,  then,  there  were 
many  names   for   God ;    but   these   did   not   at   first 
imply  that  there  were  many  Gods ;  only  that  at  one 
time  He  was  thought  of  as  showing  His  power  in  one 
way,  and  at  another  time  in  another  way.     Now  some 
of  these  names  remained  always  as  epithets,  but  others 
came  to  be  thought  of  as  denoting  different  gods, 
and  thus  polytheism— a  belief  in  many  gods — spread 
widely  in  various  nations.      Among  the  Romans  we 
can  see  very  clearly  both  these  processes  in  action. 
Their  great  god  Jupiter  was  worshipped  under  many 
surnames.     The  first,  and  apparently  the  most  widely 
spread  in  Italy,  was  Jupiter  Leucetius,  the  god  of 
light,  the  bright  sky  of  day.     Then  there  was  Jupiter 
Summanus,  the  god  of  the  nightly  sky.    Under  this 
form  he  was  at  one  time  worshipped  with  especial 


VI.]  THE  ROMAN'S  RELIGION.  107 

honour,  inasmuch  as  the  thunder-storms  of  night  are  at 
once  more  terrible  and  more  significant,  because  more 
rarely  happening,  than  those  which  come  on  by  day. 
But  in  time  he  was  degraded  from  his  place  of 
honour,  and  was  only  invoked  by  thieves  who  walk 
unseen  when  the  heavens  are  dark  at  night.  Then 
the  God  of  Heaven  was  regarded  as  the  wielder  of  the 
thunder-bolt,  and  was  worshipped  as  Jupiter  Pistor, 
the  crusher.  As  pistor  was  also  used  for  the  man 
who  crushed  or  ground  corn  into  flour  and  after- 
wards baked  it  into  bread,  the  later  Romans  could 
not  understand  why  Jupiter  should  have  this  name, 
and  Ovid  tells  us  a  foolish  story  to  account  for  it : 
but  there  cannot  be  any  doubt  that  the  name  was 
given  to  him  first  because  he  was  the  God  whose 
bolts  could  crush  his  foes.  Then  there  was  also 
Jupiter  Feretrius,  to  whom  a  Roman  general  who 
had  slain  the  general  of  the  enemy  brought  his  spoils  in 
triumph :  it  is  not  quite  clear  whence  this  name  was 
derived ;  but  it  may  perhaps  mean  the  "  Striker." 
Jupiter  Stator  was  thought  by  the  Romans  of  Cicero's 
time  to  be  "  the  Stayer"  who  stayed  the  flight  of 
the  soldiers  in  battle,  or  the  "  Stablisher,"  who  gave 
endurance  to  the  state ;  but  we  find  the  same  name 
given  to  him  in  India,  and  there  it  seems  to  mean 
"  he  who  stands "  erect  in  the  chariot  of  the  sun. 
The  name  under  which  he  was  afterwards  chiefly 
honoured,  that  of  Optimus  Maximus,  came  in,  we 
shall  see,  at  a  somewhat  later  time  than  that  which 
we  are  now  considering.  By  the  side  of  Jupiter,  the 
god  of  heaven,  there  was  a  goddess  also  common  to 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  who  represented  another 
and  a  very  important  side  of  the  national  religion. 
This  was  Vesta,  whom  the  Greeks  called  Hestia,  the 
goddess  of  the  hearth  and  home.  We  shall  see  by 
and  bye  how  large  the  place  was  which  the  family  held 
in  the  religion  of  the  Romans;  and  of  this  family 
religion  Vesta  was  the  very  centre  and  embodiment. 

Now  these  two,  Jupiter  and  Vesta,  were  the  only 
14*  10 


log  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

two  divinities  whom  the  Romans  and  the  Greeks  had 
derived  from  their  common  ancestors.      There  were 
some  whom  the  Romans  in  the  course  of  their  history 
borrowed  from  the  Greeks.     There  were  others  whom 
the  Greeks  chose  to  identify  with  some  of  their  own 
gods  and  goddesses;   and  the  Romans  were  willing 
to   believe  any  fancy  that   brought   them '  nearer  to 
a  nation  to  which  in  many  respects  they  looked  up 
with  reverence.     But  these  were  mostly  wrong  iden- 
tifications, resting   either   on   a   seeming  likeness  of 
attributes,  or  on  a  chance  similarity  of  names.      For 
instance,  the  god  who  was  worshipped  most  widely 
among  the  Italian  tribes  was  Mars  or  Mavors.     He 
was,  as  his  name  implies,  the  god  of  "manliness." 
This   notion    includes    creative    power :    so    he   was 
looked  upon  as  the  father  of  the  people ;    the  ever 
youthful  and  bountiful  god  of  plenty.      The  bright 
season  of  spring  was  sacred  to  him  :    the  name  of 
its  first  month  (Martius)  was  borrowed  from  his.     He 
received  the  first-fruits  of  the  year ;   and  to  him  the 
farmer  prayed  that  his  sheep  and  kine  might  bear 
abundantly.      The  name  Gradivus,  by  which  he  was 
often  known,  means  ''the  god  of  growth.'      But  of 
course  one  of  the  first  proofs  of  manliness  to  a  Roman 
was  prowess  in  war;  so  that  Mars  became  naturally 
the  War-god  also.      Now  the  War-god  of  the  Greeks 
was  Ares ;  but  the  place  which  he  held  among  them 
was   quite  different  from   that   of  Mars   among   the 
Romans.      He   is    the    destroying  god    of   war :    in 
strength  he  is  divine,  but  in  mind  and  heart  he  is  brutal 
and  savage.     In  Homer  it  is  not  he,  but  the  goddess  of 
wisdom,  Athena,  who  gives  victory  to  heroes ;  and  Ares 
himself  is  wounded  by  a  man,  and  flies  off  howling  from 
the  field      We  see,  then,  how  unlike  Mars  is  to  Ares, 
and  how  misleading  it  is  to  confuse  them.     In  another 
case  there  is  even  less  likeness  in  nature,  though  some- 
what more  in  name.     The  Romans  had  a  god  of  the 
homestead,  the  hcrctum  or  enclosure,  whom  they  called 
Herculus  or  Hercules.    He  was  properly  a  farmer's 


VI.]  THE  ROMAN'S  RELIGION.  109 

god,  but  as,  in  the  olden  time,  property  consisted  mainly 
in  land  and  farm-stock,  he  came  to  be  thought  of  as 
the  guardian-god  of  property  generally,  and  so  as  the 
god  of  commerce.      In   the   streets  of  every  town, 
and  by  every  road-side,  altars  were  set  up  to  him, 
at  which  oaths  were  taken  and  bargains  struck  by 
traders ;  and  he  received  the  tithe  of  all  commercial 
gains  in  the  shape  of  a  banquet,  at  which  he  was 
supposed  to  join  his  worshippers.     We  could  hardly 
find  a  greater  contrast  to  the  Italian  Hercules,  than 
in  the  Herakles  whom  the  Greeks  of  later  days  taught 
the   Romans   to   look   upon   as   one  and   the   same 
divinity.      Herakles  has  nothing  to  do  with  farms  or 
property;    he  is,  as  his   name  shows   plainly,    "the 
glory  of  the  air  of  heaven,"  the  sun-god ;   his  life  is 
one  of  toil  and  battle  for  men ;  his  course  is  darkened 
and  apparently  hindered  by  the  clouds  that  gather 
around  it,  but  he  scatters  them  all  as  he  goes,  and 
his  life  is  closed  by  a  fiery  but  glorious  death.      In 
other  cases  the  Romans  borrowed  one  attribute  or 
function  of  a  deity  from  the  Greeks,  and  knew  or 
thought  little  of  anything  further  than  this,  as  when 
they  brought  in  the  worship  of  a  new  god  of  trade, 
Mercurius,  taking  this  function  alone  from  Hermes, 
who  was  indeed  a  god  of  trade,  but  very  much  else 
besides.     Hence  it  is  plain  that  we  must  not  follow 
the  Romans  in  using  their  Latin  names  for  the  gods 
and   goddesses   of  Greece,  or   else   we    shall   often  f 
be   led   astray.      The    divinities   of  whom  we   have 
spoken,   Juppiter,   Vesta,   Mars,   and    Hercules,   are 
perhaps  the  most  important  who  were  worshipped  in 
the  earliest  days.      But  to  picture  to  ourselves  the 
heavenly  assembly  as  it  then  existed,  we  should  have 
to  add  many  another  god.      There  were  in  the  first 
place  the  deities  of  th,e  country-life  before  the  days 
of  the  building  of  Rome :  Saturnus,  the  god  of  sowing 
and  the  tillage  of  the  fields;  Ceres  or  Dea  Dia,  as 
she  had  once  been  called,  the  fertile  power  of  the 
earth  that  causes  crops  to  grow;  Pales  and  Faunus, 


I  io  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

the  gods  of  the  shepherd's  flocks.  There  were  the 
two  great  goddesses,  who  seem  to  have  come  to  the 
Romans  from  the  Sabine  portion  of  the  citizens,  Juno, 
the  type  of  queenly  womanhood,  Minerva,  the  em- 
bodiment of  wisdom.  There  was  the  two-faced  Janus, 
the  god  of  opening  and  shutting,  the  sun-god  who 
brings  the  opening  day,  and  again  at  his  departure 
shuts  up  the  world  in  darkness;  and  with  him  was 
his  sister,  Diana,  the  moon-goddess,  queen  of  the 
night.  We  may  see,  too,  though  holding  a  place 
much  lower  than  that  which  is  taken  on  the  Greek 
Olympus  by  the  deities  which  came  most  near  to 
them  in  nature,  Venus,  the  goddess  of  purity  and 
grace,  and  Neptunus,  whose  rule  extends  over  inland 
pools  and  rivers,  as  well  as  over  the  unfamiliar  sea. 
Faintly  appearing,  too,  in  dim  and  shadowy  outline, 
there  are  the  forms  of  countless  heavenly  powers,  whose 
names  are  strange  enough  to  us,  but  who  help  us  much 
to  form  a  notion  of  the  spirit  of  the  Roman  religion. 
Every  action  in  life,  from  the  most  important  down  to 
the  very  pettiest,  has  its  own  protecting  spirit.  There 
is  Vaticanus,  who  prompts  the  child's  first  cry,  and 
Fabulinus,  who  teaches  him  his  earliest  speech.  There 
is  Edusa,  who  teaches  him  to  eat,  and  Potina,  who 
teaches  him  to  drink ;  Abeona,  with  whom  he  leaves 
the  house;  Iterdiica,  who  guides  him  on  his  way; 
Domidiica,  who  leads  him  home,  and  Adeona,  who 
brings  him  in  again.  We  know  of  the  names  of  no 
less  than  forty-three  .who  were  concerned  with  the 
actions  of  a  child,  and  of  ten,  besides  the  greater 
deities,  who  had  charge  of  marriage  in  its  various 
aspects.  Prayer  for  a  bounteous  harvest  was  offered 
to  Mother  Earth  and  to  Ceres ;  but  the  worship  was 
incomplete  unless  the  farmer  invoked  with  them 
"  the  spirit  of  breaking-up  the  land  and  the  spirit  of 
ploughing  it  cross-wise,  the  spirit  of  furrowing  and 
the  spirit  of  ploughing,  the  spirit  of  ploughing  in  the 
seed  and  the  spirit  of  harrowing,  the  spirit  of  weeding 
and  the  spirit  of  reaping,  the  spirit  of  carrying  the 


VI.]  THE  ROMAN'S  RELIGION.  in 

corn  to  the  barn  and  the  spirit  of  bringing  it  out 
again." 

3.  The  Roman's  thoughts  about  his  gods. — 
Now  facts  like  these  show  us  what  the  gods  of  the 
Romans  were  to  them.      They  were  not  living  beings, 
but  mere  abstractions.     The  quick  fancy  of  the  Greek 
turned  every  deity  of  his  religion   into   a   stronger, 
wiser,  and  more  beautiful,  but  still  quite  natural,  man. 
Their   gods    loved,   hated,    quarrelled,    made    peace 
again,  appeared  to  the  eyes  of  mortals,  and  even  had 
lived  among  them  for  a  time  in  the  form  of  men. 
The  stories  which  the  Greeks  had  to  tell  about  their 
deities  make  up  the  most  fertile  and  beautiful  myth- 
ology in  the  world.     But  how  could  the  Romans  have 
any  stories  to  tell  about  shadowy  and  vague  abstrac- 
tions like  the  "  goddess  of  departure  from  home,"  or 
"the  spirit  of  cross-ploughing?"      Over  against  the 
unequalled  wealth  of  the  Greek  mythology,  we  can 
only  set  very  few  and  meagre  Italian  stories,  telling 
for  the  most  part  of  a  boy  of  miraculous  birth,  pre- 
served in  his  youth  by  the  special  favour  of  heaven, 
founding  a  city,  giving  it  laws,  and  finally  disappearing 
from  the  world  as  mysteriously  as  he  had  come  to  it. 
The  religion  of  the  Romans  was  in  no  way  a  theology : 
it  did  not  teach  men  what  the  gods  were  in  them- 
selves :    but  only  what  were  the  duties  which  men 
owed   to   them,   and   how   they   might   secure   their 
favour.     What  the  gods  were  in  themselves  they  did 
not  pretend  to  know  :  as  it  has  well  been  said,  they 
appeared  out  of  the  unseen  all-surrounding  spiritual 
world  to  influence  human  life ;  but  before  the  eye  of 
man  had  caught  their  form,  and  the  heart  had  drawn 
near  to  them,  they  had  sunk  back  again  from  sight 
and  touch,  like  a  wave  into  the  bosom  of  the  ocean. 
All  that  the  Roman  knew  of  his  gods  was  that  the 
custom  of  his  fathers  required  him  to  offer  to  them 
prayers  and  sacrifices  at  particular  times  and  seasons. 
To  do  this  was  his  bounden  duty  (religio);  and  holiness 
(sanctitas),  according  to  the  words  of  Cicero,  was  the 


112  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CIUP. 

knowledge  of  the  rites  which  had  to  be  performed.  If 
the  proper  prayers  were  offered,  and  the  sacrifices  duly 
paid,  a  bargain  was  made  with  Heaven  ;  the  worshipper 
had  done  his  part  of  it,  and  he  expected  that  the  gods 
would  then  do  theirs.  But  of  any  sense  of  what  we 
should  now  call  piety,  there  is  hardly  a  trace  to  be 
found.  It  has  been  said  that  the  essence  of  the 
Greek  religion  was  to  do  under  the  sanction  of  the 
gods  just  what  a  man  would  best  have  liked  to  do 
without  it.  The  spirit  of  the  Roman  religion  was 
almost  the  very  opposite  of  this :  it  was  rather  to  do 
that  which  one  did  not  like  to  do,  because  the  gods 
demanded  it.  Only,  Greeks  and  Romans  alike  had, 
at  least  in  the  early  days,  little  or  no  notion  that  what 
the  gods  claimed  was  what  was  always  right.  Morality 
had  little  to  do  with  religion.  There  was  a  contract 
made  for  certain  earthly  blessings,  in  return  for  certain 
honours.  But  in  religion,  as  in  law,  the  letter  was 
more  regarded  than  the  spirit.  If  a  man  offered  wine 
to  Father  Jovis,  and  did  not  mention  very  precisely 
that  it  was  only  the  cup-full  which  he  held  in  his  hand 
that  he  gave  him,  the  god  might  claim  the  whole 
vintage  of  the  year.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  god 
required  so  many  head  in  sacrifice,  by  the  letter  of  the 
bond  he  would  be  bound  to  accept  that  number  of 
garlic-heads ;  if  he  claimed  an  animal,  that  animal,  if 
more  convenient,  might  be  made  out  of  dough  or 
wax. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  Roman  religion  was  not  in 
any  way  likely  to  remedy  some  of  the  worst  faults  of 
the  people.  There  was  nothing  in  it  to  make  them 
less  hard,  cruel,  and  grasping.  There  was  much  to 
encourage  that  quibbling  want  of  faith,  which  so  often 
disgraces  their  dealings  with  other  nations.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  was  the  constant  sense  of  living 
under  obligations ;  the  idea  of  duty  was  developed ; 
the  habit  of  obedience  strengthened.  The  Roman's 
belief  about  the  gods  added  little  to  the  grace  or  joy 
of  his  life :  but  it  made  him  a  better  servant  of  the 


VI.]  THE  ROMAN'S  RELIGION.  113 

state ;  and  so  contributed  largely  to  the  strength  and 
prosperity  of  the  commonwealth. 

4.  The  spirits  of  the  dead. — But  there  is 
another  side  of  the  Roman  religion  in  its  earliest  form 
which  we  must  not  fail  to  glance  at  briefly ;  for  it  had 
the  greatest  influence  over  the  thoughts  and  even  over 
the  political  history  of  Rome.  The  spirits  of  the 
departed  were  believed  never  to  perish,  but  to  live  on 
in  a  kind  of  shadowy  life,  haunting  the  tomb  in  which 
they  were  buried,  and  depending  for  their  well-being 
entirely  on  the  honour  which  they  received  from  their 
descendants.  This  was  a  belief  which  the  Romans 
brought  with  them  from  their  earliest  home ;  for  we 
find  it  quite  as  strong  in  India  and  in  Greece.  It  was 
the  greatest  misfortune  for  a  family  to  become  extinct, 
for  then  the  spirits  of  the  dead  were  left  without  any 
one  to  honour  them.  It  was  the  greatest  impiety  to 
neglect  the  rights  due  to  ancestors,  for  this  was  sup- 
posed to  bring  misery  upon  them  in  the  unseen  world. 
Hence  it  was  at  once  a  serious  crime  and  a  grave 
misfortune  for  a  man  to  die  unmarried ;  not  only  was 
he  doomed  to  lose  all  honours  after  death  himself,  but 
he  also  robbed  the  spirits  of  his  forefathers  of  the 
honours  which  they  ought  to  have  continued  to  enjoy. 
These  honours  were  paid  at  the  family  hearth,  the 
centre  of  the  family  life.  The  goddess  of  the  hearth 
was  Vesta;  but  coupled  with  her  in  the  worship  were 
spirits  called  Lares  or  Penates.  The  nature  of  these 
spirits  is  not  quite  clearly  ascertained.  But,  when  we 
remember  the  importance  that  was  attached  to  the 
honours  paid  after  death  to  the  spirits  of  the  de- 
parted; when  we  recollect  that  these  honours  were 
always  paid  at  the  tomb  in  which  the  spirit  was  sup- 
posed to  have  his  dwelling,  and  remember,  further, 
that  in  the  earliest  times  the  father  of  the  house  was 
buried  at  his  own  hearth,  we  shall  readily  believe  that 
the  Lares  and  Penates  were  nothing  but  the  deified 
spirits  of  ancestors.  Spirits  who  had  been  neglected 
became  evil  mischievous  ghosts  (Larvae,  Lemures); 


H4  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

those  which  continued  to  receive  their  proper  honours 
became  the  kindly  guardians  of  the  family  (Lares, 
Penates).  Now,  from  this  belief  in  the  vital  im- 
portance of  the  worship  of  the  spirits  of  the  house- 
hold, two  very  important  consequences  followed.  In 
the  first  place,  the  only  priest  who  conducted  this 
worship  was  the  pater  familias :  hence  it  was  in  his 
power  to  exclude  from  the  sacrifices  any  whom  he 
judged  unworthy  to  take  part  in  them.  From  this 
resulted,  at  least  in  part,  that  notion  of  the  unlimited 
authority  of  the  father,  of  which  we  have  already 
spoken.  But,  secondly,  no  one  could  be  present  at 
the  family  sacrifice  except  one  who  was  a  member  of 
the  family.  For  any  one  to  join  in  the  worship  of 
ancestors  who  was  not  really  descended  from  them,  or 
who  had  not  at  least  become  a  son  of  the  family  by 
lawful  adoption,  was  regarded  as  shocking  sacrilege. 
Undoubtedly  this  feeling  helped  very  largely  to  pre- 
serve that  purity  of  family  life,  which  was  one  of  the 
most  honourable  things  in  the  early  history  of  Rome. 
But,  again,  the  commonwealth  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
regarded  as  one  large  family.  As  each  household  had 
its  separate  family  hearth,  so  the  nation  had  its 
common  hearth  in  the  temple  of  Vesta,  and  its 
common  religious  rites,  at  which  no  stranger  might  be 
present.  Now  the  plebeians  were  aliens  who  had 
come  to  live  in  Rome ;  but,  according  to  the  strict  old 
Roman  notions,  they  had  no  family  life  of  their  own, 
and  no  claim  to  share  the  family  life  of  the  nation. 
They  were  not  even  married  according  to  Roman 
law ;  and  therefore  they  could  not  be  properly  fathers 
(patres).  For  them  to  claim  the  rights  of  citizens, 
and  to  ask  to  be  allowed  as  magistrates  to  offer  sacri- 
fices on  behalf  of  the  people  to  the  national  gods,  was 
just  as  if  a  stranger  had  wished  to  thrust  himself  in 
at  the  family  worship,  and  to  usurp  the  place  of  the 
father  as  priest  of  the  household.  No  doubt  there 
were  other  motives  which  influenced  the  patricians  in 
their  long  struggle  against  the  claims  of  the  plebeians; 


VI.]  THE  ROMAN'S  RELIGION.  115 

but  at  the  heart  it  was  chiefly  this  desire  to  preserve 
the  purity  of  their  religious  rites  which  made  them  so 
obstinate  in  their  resistance. 

5.  The  temples  and  priests.  •—  The  word 
templum  means  properly  a  spot  marked  off  for  sacred 
purposes,  and  might  be  used  of  any  place  set  apart  by 
the  augur  on  which  to  make  his  observations,  or  even 
of  that  portion  of  the  sky  marked  off  by  him  in  which 
to  watch  for  omens.  Then,  without  losing  its  older 
meaning,  it  was  also  applied  to  any  building  set  apart 
for  the  worship  of  the  gods.  In  the  early  times,  of 
which  we  are  speaking  at  present,  a  templum  consisted 
of  nothing  more  than  a  cella  or  chamber,  to  contain 
the  image  of  the  deity,  or  sometimes  merely  a  niche 
(aedicula),  before  which  stood  an  altar  (ara).  When- 
ever it  was  possible,  these  were  arranged  so  that  the 
opening  of  the  cella  fronted  the  west,  in  order  that 
a  worshipper  standing  before  the  altar,  and  looking 
towards  the  image,  might  face  the  east;  and  this 
position  is  still  retained  for  the  most  part  in  Christian 
churches.  But  the  templum  was  only  regarded  as  the 
dwelling-place  of  the  god ;  the  people  never  entered  it 
to  pay  their  worship ;  still  less  did  they  meet  in  it  to 
receive  instruction.  The  erection  of  buildings  of  any 
architectural  beauty  as  temples  of  the  gods  seems  to 
mark  the  first  step  in  the  development  of  the  Roman 
religion  by  the  influence  of  foreign  nations. 

The  priests  at  Rome  never  formed  a  separate  class, 
as  in  Egypt,  and  as  in  many  modern  nations.  There 
was  no  special  training  needed,  for  they  were  in  no 
way  the  teachers  of  the  people;  it  was  simply  their 
duty  to  perform  on  behalf  of  the  nation  the  sacrifices 
due  to  the  gods  according  to  the  traditional  rites. 
They  were  not  excluded  from  other  offices ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  was  usual  to  choose  the  most  illustrious 
statesmen  or  generals  to  fill  the  various  priesthoods. 
We  may  distinguish  two  separate  classes:  (i)  those 
who  had  a  general  direction  of  religious  matters,  and 
who  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  properly  priests;  and 


rr6  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

(2)  the  priests  of  particular  deities.  Of  the  first  class, 
there  were  two  great  colleges  (collegia)  or  groups  oi 
colleagues,  with  others  of  less  importance.  The  first 
in  honour  and  power  were  the  Pontifices,  who  seem 
to  have  derived  their  name  from  pans  in  its  original 
meaning  of  a  road,  and  to  have  had  the  charge  of 
the  communications  between  different  parts  of  the 
city  and  the  state.  But  their  control  extended  over 
everything  which  concerned  religion,  including  the 
regulation  of  the  Calendar,  the  days  on  which  the 
law-courts  met,  and  even  the  course  of  legal  pro- 
cedure, in  short,  as  they  phrased  it  themselves,  "  the 
science  of  things  divine  and  human."  The  chief  of 
these  was  styled  Pontifex  Maximus;  he  was  the 
official  head  of  the  Roman  religion ;  but  how  little  he 
was  of  an  ecclesiastic  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  Julius 
Csesar  was  Pontifex  Maximus  all  the  time  that  he  was 
conquering  Gaul.  The  Pontifex  Maximus  had  four  col- 
leagues, all  patricians,  but  afterwards  four  plebeians 
were  added  to  the  college.  Next  in  rank  and  import- 
ance came  the  Augurs.  It  was  the  duty  of  these  to  as- 
certain the  will  of  the  gods  upon  any  action  which  was 
contemplated  by  the  state.  This  they  did  by  observing 
the  omens  given  by  the  flight  or  the  cries  of  birds 
according  to  a  body  of  rules,  which  formed  the  science 
(disciplina)  of  augury.  They  must  be  carefully  dis- 
tinguished from  the  haruspices,  or  soothsayers,  who 
were  foreigners  from  Etruria.  The  latter  by  observing 
the  organs  of  victims  offered  in  sacrifice,  and  oy  in- 
terpreting the  meaning  of  lightnings,  pretended  to 
be  able  to  prophesy  in  much  greater  detail  than 
the  Augurs,  who  could  only  say  in  general  terms 
whether  the  gods  gave  their  approval  or  refused  it ; 
and  so  in  course  of  time  the  haruspices  became  much 
the  more  popular  body;  but  they  never  held  the 
same  rank  in  the  state  with  the  Augurs ;  Cato  forbade 
his  steward  to  consult  one;  and  Cicero,  who  was 
very  proud  of  his  election  into  the  college  of  augurs, 
speaks  of  it  as  a  shameful  thing  that  a  haruspex  was 


VI.]  THE  ROMAN'S  RELIGION.  117 

admitted  into  the  senate  by  Caesar.  But  even  the 
pontifices  and  the  augurs  were  not  allowed  to  consult 
the  gods  or  to  advise  unbidden  by  the  magistrates  ; 
the  right  of  "taking  the  auspices"  lay  only  with 
those  to  whom  the  people  had  entrusted  it,  and  the 
priest,  as  such,  was  honoured  for  his  special  know- 
ledge, but  bound  to  use  it  only  when  called  upon 
to  do  so  by  the  state.  Of  the  priests  of  special 
divinities  the  most  important  were  the  three  "kindlers" 
(Flamines)  of  Jovis,  Mars,  and  Quirinus,  the 
twelve  Salii  or  "leaping  priests"  of  Mars,  and  the 
twelve  "  Brethren  of  the  Fields"  (Fratres  Arvales), 
who  called  upon  the  Dea  Dia  to  bless  the  growth  of 
the  seed ;  and  to  these  we  must  add  the  six  Vestal 
Virgins  who  kept  the  sacred  fire  ever  blazing  in  the 
temple  of  Vesta,  honoured  as  the  common  hearth  of 
the  city.  Such  were  the  gods  that  were  worshipped 
in  Rome  in  the  earliest  days  of  the  city,  and  the 
priests  who  took  part  in  their  service. 

6.  The  Ritual. — The  forms  of  worship  were  for 
the  most  part  bright  and  simple.  There  was  not,  on 
the  one  hand,  any  deep  sense  of  sin  that  needed 
atonement,  such  as  meets  us  in  some  of  the  Greek 
beliefs,  or  any  desire  for  moral  purity  and  growth. 
The  blessings  which  were  sought  were  mainly  such  as 
would  lead  to  wealth  and  comfort  in  this  life.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  was  little  terror  or  gloom  in  the 
worship.  It  consisted  mainly  in  songs  and  dances, 
followed  by  a  sacrifice  to  the  gods ;  and  this  really 
meant  a  feast  to  the  worshippers,  which  would  give 
them  a  welcome  change  from  their  usual  vegetable 
diet.  When  those  who  were  taking  part  in  the  worship 
had  bathed  themselves  in  a  running  stream,  robed 
themselves  in  their  snow-white  togas,  and  placed  on 
their  heads  garlands  of  the  leaves  sacred  to  the  god 
in  whose  honour  they  were  gathered,  a  crier  bade  all 
keep  silence,  that  no  word  of  ill  omen  might  be 
heard.  The  piper  (tibicen),  whose  presence  was  indis- 
pensable at  any  solemn  sacrifice,  then  blew  a  strain  on 


n8  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

his  pipes :  all  present  veiled  their  heads :  the  sacrificer 
repeated  a  prayer  dictated  by  the  priest  or  pontiff: 
the  victim,  adorned  with  garlands  (serta)  and  ribbons 
(vittae),  was  gently  led  to  the  altar:  wine,  incense, 
and  salted  meal  were  sprinkled  on  his  head :  and 
the  attendant  (popa)  struck  him  down  with  a  mallet 
and  cut  his  throat  with  a  knife.  The  blood  was 
caught  in  a  basin  and  poured  upon  the  altar.  The 
inside  of  the  carcase  (exta)  was  sprinkled  again  with 
incense,  wine,  and  meal,  and  burnt  in  the  flames. 
The  flesh  (viscera)  furnished  a  feast  for  the  family,  or 
on  public  occasions  for  the  priests. 

7.  Changes  in  the  Roman  religion.  —  We 
have  now  to  trace  very  rapidly  the  various  influences 
which  brought  new  deities  into  Rome.  This  can 
only  be  done  now  in  very  brief  outline ;  but  perhaps 
it  will  be  worth  while  to  attempt  it,  that  we  may  see 
the  more  clearly  how  different  the  Rome  of  Csesar  was 
in  this  respect,  as  in  so  many  others,  from  the  Rome 
of  the  early  Republic.  The  first  great  change  is  said  to 
have  been  made  when  Tarquinius  Priscus  brought 
craftsmen  from  Etruria  to  build  the  great  temple  on 
the  Capitoline  hill  to  Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Minerva.  Of 
Tarquinius  himself  we  cannot  be  said  to  know  any- 
thing with  certainty ;  but  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  it 
marked  a  stage  in  the  history  of  Roman  religion  when 
Jupiter  the  king,  under  his  new  title  of  Optimus 
Maximus,  was  honoured,  along  with  the  two  other 
Capitoline  deities,  by  a  temple  which  long  remained 
the  highest  triumph  of  art  at  Rome.  Next,  at  the 
close  of  the  Regal  period,  we  have  the  story  of  the 
Sibyl  and  her  books.  This  is  of  great  importance  as 
marking  the  beginning  of  the  steady  influence  of 
Greece  on  Rome  in  matters  of  religion.  The  Sibylline 
Books  were  entrusted  to  the  keeping  of  two  guardians, 
afterwards  increased  to  ten  and  to  fifteen.  The 
college  formed  by  these  was  the  first  of  the  sacred 
offices  opened  to  plebeians ;  and  we  find  that  almost 
all  the  changes  which  we  afterwards  read  of  are 


VI.]  THE  ROMAN'S  RELIGION.  119 

directly  set  down  to  its  influence.  In  the  first  place, 
the  sacred  books  contained  the  oracles  given  by  the 
priestess  of  Apollo,  and  so  that  god  became  familiar 
to  the  Romans,  though  at  first  under  the  corrupted 
form  of  Aperta,  "the  opener."  Soon  followed  the 
introduction  of  three  Greek  deities,  Demeter,  Perse- 
phone, and  Dionysus,  identified  with  the  old  Italian 
Ceres,  Libera,  and  Liber;  we  are  told  that  in  the 
building  of  the  temple  sacred  to  these  Greek  artists 
were  for  the  first  time  employed  instead  of  Etruscans. 
A  century  later  the  Sibylline  books  enjoined  the 
Romans  to  keep  a  new  feast  in  honour  of  Herakles, 
now  fully  identified  with  Hercules.  Another  century 
passed,  and  under  the  same  direction  the  Greek  god  ot 
healing,  Asklepios,  was  solemnly  fetched  to  Rome  and 
worshipped  under  the  name  of  Aesculapius.  As  the 
circle  of  Roman  conquest  grew,  the  gods  of  more 
distant  countries  found  a  welcome  on  the  banks  ot 
the  Tiber.  As  early  as  the  war  with  Hannibal,  Venus 
of  Eryx  in  Sicily,  a  goddess  of  Phoenician  origin  who 
had  little  in  common  with  the  old  Italian  Venus,  was 
brought  to  Rome,  again  by  the  orders  of  the  guardians 
of  the  sacred  books;  and  before  the  end  of  the 
struggle  the  same  authorities  brought  the  Great  Idaean 
Mother  (Magna  Mater)  from  the  Phrygian  Pessinus, 
and  founded  in  her  honour  the  Megalesian  games. 
Meanwhile  a  crowd  of  foreigners  had  been  settling  in 
Rome,  each  bringing  with  him  the  religious  rites 
and  beliefs  of  his  country.  To  all  these  the  Roman 
policy  granted  a  ready  tolerance.  It  was  admitted  to 
be  the  duty  of  every  man  to  worship  the  gods  of 
his  nation  in  the  manner  to  which  he  was  accustomed; 
and  if  any  Roman  citizen  chose  to  add  to  his  own 
national  gods  those  of  any  other  country,  the  state 
had  nothing  to  say  to  this,  so  long  as  he  discharged 
all  the  duties  that  were  incumbent  upon  him.  The 
foreign  deities  which  found  most  favour  at  Rome 
towards  the  end  of  the  Republic  were  those  which 
came  from  the  East,  and  especially  from  Egypt.  The 


120  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES.  [CHAP. 

worship  of  the  Roman  gods  had  always  been  chiefly 
a  matter  of  formal  obligation,  in  which  the  heart  had 
been  little  concerned.  Now,  by  the  lapse  of  time, 
the  old-fashioned  rites  and  ceremonies  had  lost  all 
the  little  meaning  that  they  once  had  had ;  and  the 
religious  emotions  found  need  for  their  expression  in 
other  forms.  Hence  the  great  popularity,  among  both 
high  and  low,  of  various  forms  of  Eastern  supersti- 
tion :  and  especially  of  the  worship  of  Isis,  Osiris, 
and  Serapis.  We  cannot  dwell  on  the  nature  of 
these  forms  of  worship;  but  there  are  three  points 
of  especial  importance  to  notice :  unlike  the  old 
Roman  faith,  they  were  directed  by  priesthoods  form- 
ing a  caste  quite  severed  from  the  common  duties 
of  life ;  and  they  aimed  very  much  at  the  excitement 
of  religious  emotions ;  but  like  it,  they  were  little 
connected  with  morality,  and  could  not  do  much 
to  help  the  worshipper  to  a  nobler  and  purer  life. 
Whatever  was  done  in  the  later  days  of  Rome  to  check 
the  evil,  which  was  growing  so  fast  from  the  gradual 
decay  of  the  manly  simplicity  of  earlier  days,  was 
done  by  the  Greek  philosophers.  There  is  not  space 
for  us  now  even  to  glance  at  the  work  they  did. 
But  it  may  always  be  remembered  with  thankfulness 
that,  at  a  time  when  to  many  the  city  of  Rome  would 
have  seemed  wholly  given  up  to  evil ;  when  the  rich 
men  were  living  in  selfish  luxury,  rioting  in  every 
kind  of  vice,  or  at  best  looking  on  with  despair  at 
the  ruin  of  the  state  and  of  society;  when  the  vast 
masses  of  the  poor  in  the  city  were  idle  and  reckless 
paupers ;  and  when  the  canker  of  slavery  was  eating 
away  the  very  heart  of  the  nation ;  there  were  yet 
living  and  teaching  in  the  midst  of  it  all,  some  of 
the  wisest  and  best  of  the  men  whose  words  have 
come  down  from  that  ancient  world  to  us. 

8.  Conclusion. — There  is  very  much  more  which 
might  have  been  told  about  the  life  of  the  Roman 
people,  if  space  had  been  left  to  dwell  upon  it.  We 
might  have  watched  a  Roman  army  as  it  marched 


VI.]  THE  ROMAN'S  RELIGION.  121 

out  into  the  field  to  fight  its  country's  battles.  The 
legion,  with  its  various  divisions,  the  arms  of  the 
troops,  the  arrangement  of  the  camp,  the  order  of 
the  line  of  battle,  would  all  have  called  for  notice. 
Or  we  might  have  said  more  about  the  mighty  works 
which  have  left  their  traces  in  every  land  in  which 
the  Roman  has  ever  held  rule — the  roads,  the  bridges, 
and  the  aqueducts.  The  division  of  time*  by  the 
calendar,  the  weights  and  coins  in  use,  the  methods 
of  trade  and  commerce,  the  interest  of  money,  the 
revenues  of  the  state,  and  many  other  topics  like 
these  would  have  well  repaid  our  study.  But  on 
all  such  points  as  these  information  must  be  gathered 
from  larger  works.  This  little  book  will  have  done 
enough,  if  it  has  shown  in  rough  and  unfinished  out- 
line something  of  the  daily  life  of  that  mighty  people, 
which,  starting  with  the  humblest  beginnings,  has  left 
its  mark  on  the  world  more  deeply  than  any  nation 
ever  known  in  the  history  of  man. 

•  See  Appendix. 


APPENDIX. 

I.  -THE  ROMAN  MONEY. 

IN  the  earliest  days  of  all  the  Aryan  nations  coined 
money  was  unknown,  and  value  was  estimated  in 
cattle,  large  or  small  (pecus),  from  which  money 
(pecunia)  afterwards  got  its  name.  Hence  in  the 
earliest  laws  fines  were  assessed  in  cattle ;  and  we 
have  still  remaining  large  pieces  of  bronze  found  in 
Italy  weighing  about  five  pounds,  and  stamped  with 
figures  of  animals  :  these  seem  to  have  been  used  for 
sacred  offerings  long  after  they  had  been  replaced  in 
commerce  by  coined  money.  Then,  as  gold  and  silver 
were  still  very  rare  in  Italy,  copper  was  made  the 
standard,  and  prices  were  estimated  in  pounds  of 
copper.  In  the  time  of  the  Decemvirs  (Primer  of 
Roman  History,  p.  16),  the  Romans  began  to  coin 
money  from  copper  alloyed  with  tin  and  lead.  The 
largest  coin  was  the  as,  which  was  supposed  to  weigh 
a  pound  (libra) ;  but  we  see  from  the  unworn  speci- 
mens of  this  as  libralis  which  have  been  found,  that 
it  weighed  from  the  first  not  more  than  ten  ounces 
(unciae),  instead  of  twelve.  The  reduction  was 
made  that  it  might  be  equal  in  value  to  the  small 
Sicilian  coin  (nummus),  which  was  largely  current 
at  this  time  in  commerce,  silver  then  being  worth 
250  times  its  weight  of  copper.  The  as  was  at  this 
time  cast,  not  struck,  and  at  Rome  it  had  on  one 
side  the  head  of  Janus,  on  the  other  the  prow  of  a 
ship.  They  coined  also  the  semis  (half  an  as),  the 
triens  (4  ounces,  nominally),  the  quadrans  (3 
ounces),  the  sextans  (2  ounces),  and  the  uncia  (one 
ounce).  These  all  bore  on  one  side  the  prow  of  a 
ship,  on  the  other  the  head  of  some  particular  deity. 
By  degrees  the  as  was  diminished  in  weight  and 


APPENDIX.  123 

value.  Shortly  before  the  First  Punic  War  it  was 
reduced,  first  to  four  ounces,  and  then  to  two,  the 
names  of  the  smaller  coins  remaining  the  same, 
but  their  value  sinking  in  proportion.  About  the 
time  of  the  latter  reduction,  silver  became  the  stan- 
dard instead  of  copper ;  and  three  silver  coins  were 
struck  —  the  denarius  10  reduced  asses,  the 

quinarius  =  5  asses,  and  the  sestertius,  2*^  asses. 
During  the  Second  Punic  War  the  as  was  reduced  to 
one  ounce ;  before  the  time  of  Caesar  it  had  become 
half-an-ounce,  and  under  the  Empire  it  was  only  fi 
ounce.  We  have  a  parallel  to  this  change  in  the  case  of 
the  French  sou,  which  is  now  worth  less  than  a  half- 
penny, although  it  is  the  direct  descendant  of  the  Latin 
solidus,  which  was  worth  17  shillings  (p.  71).  In  the 
time  of  Cicero  we  have,  then, 

As  =  less  than  a  penny 
Sestertius  =  about  twopence 
Denarius  =  about  eightpence  farthing. 

The  denarius  was  the  silver  coin  in  ordinary  use ;  the 
sestertius,  being  inconveniently  small,  was  seldom 
coined ;  but  all  accounts  were  kept  in  sestertii,  or,  as 
they  were  often  called,  nummi.  The  genitive  plural 
sestertium  was  used,  according  to  rule,  after  millia;  so 
that  3,000  sestertii  would  be  tria  millia  sestertium  ;  but 
afterwards  the  word  sestertium  was  treated  as  if  it  was 
a  neuter  singular ;  and  they  said  tria  sestertia.  It  must 
be  remembeied,  however,  that  the  sestertium  was  never 
a  coin,  but  only  an  expression  used  in  reckoning,  as 
equivalent  to  a  thousand  sestertii,  or  about  £8  los. 
For  sums  above  a  million  sesterces  it  was  common  to 
use  the  numeral  adverb :  thus  2,000,000  sesterces 
—  vicies  centena  millia  sestertium.  In  this  case  the 
words  centena,  millia  were  usually  omitted ;  so  that 
vicies  sestertium,  or  even  vicies  alone  means  "twenty 
times  [a  hundred  thousand]  sesterces." 

Gold  was  very  little  coined  in  Rome  until  the 
victories  of  Sulla  and  Pompeius  in  the  East  brought 
15* 


124  ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES. 

much  wealth  into  the  city.  Julius  Cassar  was  the  first 
to  make  it  the  standard ;  his  aureus  or,  as  it  was  after- 
wards sometimes  called,  solidus,  was  worth  25  denarii 
or  100  sesterces. 

II.— THE  ROMAN  CALENDAR. 

The  division  of  time  into  weeks  was  not  in  use  at 
Rome  before  the  introduction  of  Christianity ;  but  the 
Romans  were  aware  that  the  Jews  were  accustomed  to 
keep  every  seventh  day  sacred  ;  and  references  to  the 
Jewish  Sabbath  are  to  be  found  in  writers  like  Horace 
and  Juvenal.  Each  month  was  divided  by  the  Idus 
or  Ides,  that  is,  the  day  when  the  moon  is  at  its  brightest, 
a  day  fixed  for  those  months  originally  long  (/.  e., 
March,  May,  July  and  October)  as  the  i5th,  and  for 
the  other  months  as  the  i3th ;  and  by  the  Nonae  or 
Nones,  which  fell,  as  we  should  say,  on  the  eighth,  but 
as  the  Romans,  reckoning  after  their  custom  inclu- 
sively, said,  on  the  ninth  (nonus)  day  before  the  Ides, 
/.  e.,  on  the  7th  or  the  5th  day  of  the  month.  The  first 
day  of  each  month  was  called  the  Kalendaeor  Calends, 
because  it  was  in  early  times  the  custom  for  one  of  the 
minor  pontiffs  to  keep  watch  for  the  appearance  of  the 
new  moon  and  to  proclaim  (Kalare)  its  advent  to  the 
people.  The  other  days  of  the  month  were  reckoned 
backwards  from  the  Nones,  from  the  Ides,  or  from  the 
Calends  of  the  following  month,  always  counting  in- 
clusively, so  that,  e.g.,  March  5th  was  called  the  third 
day  before  the  Nones,  March  yth. 

It  is  plain  that  at  first  the  months  must  have  been 
lunar  months ;  and,  from  the  names  of  the  months 
which  are  still  retained  by  us,  we  can  see  that  the  year 
began  with  March.  But  in  what  way  a  year  of  ten 
lunar  months  was  made  to  agree,  even  pretty  nearly, 
with  a  solar  year  of  365^  days,  it  is  impossible  for  us 
now  to  say.  Several  guesses  have  been  made,  but  none 
seem  certain.  About  the  time  of  the  Decemvirs  the 
lunar  months  were  given  up  for  an  arrangement  by 


APPENDIX.  125 

which  March,  May,  July  and  October  had  31  days 
each,  February  28,  and  all  the  others  29.  As  this  year 
of  355  days  was  much  too  short  to  agree  with  the  sun's 
course,  22  or  23  days  were  intercalated  every  other 
year,  in  the  middle  of  February,  the  regular  reckoning 
of  the  days  being  stopped  after  the  Ides,  until  the 
mcnsis  interkalaris  had  run  out.  But  this  intercalation 
was  a  little  too  much ;  and,  besides,  it  was  not  fairly 
carried  out,  for  the  pontiffs  added  days  or  omitted  to 
do  so,  according  as  they  wished  to  shorten  an  enemy's 
term  of  office  or  lengthen  a  friend's,  or  for  other 
personal  reasons.  By  the  time  of  Julius  Csesar,  the 
calendar  had  thus  got  into  great  confusion,  and  the 
months  did  not  fall  at  all  in  their  proper  seasons.  For 
instance,  Caesar  says  in  his  Civil  War — "  It  was  Jan. 
4th,  and  the  winter  was  approaching : "  the  real  date 
having  been  November  5th.  In  his  dictatorship,  to 
remedy  this  evil,  he  made  the  number  of  days  in  each 
month  what  it  now  is,  so  bringing  the  year  up  to  365 
days  instead  of  355  :  then  he  ordained  that  in  every 
fourth  year  the  sixth  day  before  the  Calends  of 
March  should  be  reckoned  twice  over,  whence  the 
name  for  leap-year,  bissextile  (an/ius  bissextilis,  a  year 
with  two  sixth  days).  Thus  the  average  length  of  a 
year  was  365^  days,  which  is  so  near  the  truth  that 
no  great  inconvenience  was  caused  by  the  error  for 
centuries. 

The  names  of  the  months  were  mensis  Jan- 
uarius,  Februarius,  Martius,  Aprilis,  Maius, 
Junius,  Quintilis,  Sextilis,  September,  Octo- 
ber, November,  December.  After  the  death  of 
Julius  Csesar  the  mensis  Quintilis  was  called  in  honour 
of  him  mensis  Julius :  and  similarly,  after  the  death  of 
Augustus  the  mensis  Sextilis  received  the  name  Augus- 
tus. The  accompanying  table  gives  the  Roman  dates, 
after  the  reform  of  Csesar,  corresponding  to  some  of  our 
English  dates,  from  which  the  rest  will  be  easily  found  : 
it  must  be  remembered  (i)  that  the  name  of  the  month 
is  an  adjective  agreeing  with  the  feminine  words 


126 


ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES. 


Kalendae,  Nonae,  Idus ;  (2)  that  the  date  is  put  in  the 
ablative;  (3)  that  by  a  curious  attraction,  instead  of 
saying,  e.g.,  quarto  die  ante  Nonas  Januarias,  it  is  more 
common  to  say  antequartum  diem  Nonas  Januarias,  i.  e., 
before  (the  fourth  day)  the  Nones  of  January. 


Januarius 

Aprilis 

Martiua 

(so  for 

(so  for 

(so  for 

Day  of            Augustus 

Junius, 

Maius, 

English                 and 

September, 

Julius, 

Month.          December). 

November). 

October). 

i              Kal.  Jan. 

Kal.  Apr. 

KaL  Mart. 

2      a.d.  iv.  Non.  Jan. 

a.d.  iv.  Non.  Apr. 

a.d.  vi.  Non.  Mart. 

4        Prid.  Non.  Jan. 

Prid.  Non.  Apr. 

a.d.  iv.  Non.  Mart. 

5             Non.  Jan. 

Non.  Apr. 

a.d.  iii.  Non.  Mart. 

6       a.d.  viii.  Id.  Jan. 

a.d.  viii.  Id.  Apr. 

Prid.  Non.  Mart. 

7        a.d.  vii.  Id.  Jan. 

a.d.  vii.  Id.  Apr. 

Non.  Mart. 

8        a.d.  vi.  Id.  Jan. 

a.d.  vi.  Id.  Apr. 

a.d.  viii.  Id.  Mart. 

12          Prid.  Id,  Jan. 

Prid.  Id.  Apr. 

a.d.  iv.  Id.  Mart. 

13               Id.  Jan. 

Id.  Apr. 

a.d.  iii.  Id.  Mart. 

14     a.d.  xix.  Kal.  Feb. 

a.d.  xviii.  Kal.  Mai. 

Prid.  Id.  Mart. 

15    a.d.  xviii.  Kal.  Feb. 

a.d.  xvii.  Kal.  Mai. 

Id.  Mart. 

16     a.d.  xvii.  Kal.  Feb. 

a.d.  xvi.  Kal.  Mai. 

a.d.  xvii.  Kal.  Apr. 

30      a.d.  iii.  Kal.  Feb. 

Prid.  Kal.  Mai. 

a.d.  iii.  Kal.  Apr. 

31        Prid.  Kal.  Feb. 

Prid.  Kal.  Apr. 

(From  Koty's  Latin  Grammar,  Vol.  /.,  Appendix  D.) 


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and  greatest  characters  of  time.  The  book  is  one  of  indescribable 
interest.  The  boy  or  girl  who  is  not.  fascinated  by  it  must  be  dull  in- 
deed. .Blessed  be  the  day  when  it  shall  be  introduced  into  our  hiiih- 
schools,  in  the  place  of  the  dry  and  wearisome  '  facts  and  figures  'of 
the  •  general  history '  t "— Iowa  Normal  Monthly. 

A  Natural   History   Reader,    for  Schools  and  Homes. 

Beautifully  illustrated.     Compiled  and  edited   by  JAMES 

JOHONNOT.     12mo.     Cloth.     414  pages. 

"  The  natural  turn  that  children  have  for  the  country,  and  for  birds 
and  beasts,  wild  and  tame,  is  taken  advantage  of  very  wisely  by  Mr. 
Johonnot,  who  has  had  experience  in  teaching  and  in  making  school- 
books.  His  selections  are  generally  excellent.  Articles  by  renowned 
naturalists,  and  interesting  papers  by  men  who,  if  not  renowned,  can 
put  things  pointedly,  alternate  with  serious  and  humorous  verse. 
'The  Popular  Science  Monthlv'  has  furnished  much  material.  The 
'Atlantic'  and  the  works  of  John  Burroughs  are  contributors  also. 
There  are  illustrations,  and  the  compiler  has  some  sensible  advice  to 
offer  teachers  in  regard  to  the  way  in  which  to  interest  young  people 
in  matters  relating  to  nature."— New  Yo>-k  Times. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS, 

New  York,  Boston,  Chicago,  San  Francisco. 


READERS  AND  READING  CHARTS. 


The  Standard  Supplementary  Readers.     Edited  by 
WILLIAM  SWIXTON  and  GEORGE  R.  CATHCART. 
Comprising  a  series  of  carefully  graduated  reading-books, 
designed  to  connect  with  any  of  the  regular  series  of  Headers. 
There  are  six  books  in  the  series,  as  follows  : 

I. 

EASY  STEPS  FOR  LITTLE  FEET.     Supplementary  to  First 
Reader.     Illustrated.     Cloth.     128  pages. 

GOLDEN  BOOK  OF  CHOICE  READING.     Supplementary 
to  Second  Reader.     Illustrated.     Cloth.     192  pa^es. 

III. 

BOOK   OF   TALES.     Supplementary  to  Third  Reader.     Il- 
lustrated.    Cloth.     276  pages. 

IV. 

READINGS  IN  THE  BOOK  OF  NATURE.     Supplementary 
to  Fourth  Reader.     Illustrated.     Cloth.     352  pages. 

V.,  VI. 
SEVEN  AMERICAN  CLASSICS.  )  Supplementary  to    Fifth 

SEVEN  BRITISH  CLASSICS.       j  0'0 


Mandeville's  Reading  and  Oratory.    I2mo.   356  pages. 
Mandeville's  Course  of  Reading.    12mo.    377  pages. 

Hows'  s  Historical  Shakespearian  Reader.  12mo.  503 
pages. 

Hows's  Shakespearian  Reader.    12mo.    447  pages. 

Appletons'  Elementary  Reading  Charts.  Forty-seven 
Numbers,  including  a  beautiful  Chart  of  Colors.  Prepared 
by  REBECCA  D.  RICKOFF. 

These  Charts  are  designed  to  give  a  thorough  exposition  of 
the  Word  and  Phonic  Method  especial!}',  and  at  the  same  time 
all  that  is  best  in  all  other  methods  of  teaching  reading.  The 
Charts  are  27  x  34  inches  in  size,  printed  upon  strong,  flexible, 
tinted  paper,  and  firmly  bound  at  the  upper  margin,  where  they 
are  attached  to  the  Supporter-frame.  They  are  turned  back 
over  the  frame  when  in  use,  exposing  to  view  any  one  in  the  set 
desired. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS, 

New  York,  Boston,  Chicago,  San  Francisco. 


APPLETONS' 

AMERICAN  STANDARD    GEOGRAPHIES- 

BASED  OS  THE  PRISCIPIE8  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  EDUCATION, 

And  giving  Special  Prominence  to  the  Industrial,  Commer- 
cial, and  Practical  Features. 


The  remarkable  success  which  Appletons'  Readers  have  at- 
tained is  due  to  the  fact  that  no  effort  or  expense  was  spared  to 
make  them  not  only  mechanically  superior,  but  practically  and 
distinctively  superior,  in  their  embodiment  of  the  best  results  of 
modern  experience  in  teaching,  and  of  the  methods  followed  by 
the  most  successful  and  intelligent  educators.  In  the  same 
spirit,  and  with  the  same  high  aim,  this  new  series  of  Geog- 
raphies has  been  prepared,  and  it  is  in  harmony,  therefore,  with 
the  active  educational  thought  of  the  times. 

The  series  comprises  two  books  for  graded  schools. 

I.  Appletons'  Elementary  Geography.   Small  4to.  108 

pages. 

In  this  book  the  aim  is  to  develop  and  present  the  subject 
in  accordance  with  the  views  of  advanced  teachers,  and  to  em- 
body the  most  natural  and  philosophical  system. 

II.  Appletons'  Higher  Geography.      Large  4to.     129 
pages. 

Prominence  is  given  to  a  consideration  of  the  leading  Indus- 
tries, as  the  results  of  certain  physical  conditions,  and  es- 
pecially to  Commerce,  a  feature  which  will  not  fail  to  be  ac- 
ceptable in  this  practical  age.  The  pupil  is  taught  to  what  the 
great  cities  owe  their  growth,  the  main  routes  of  travel  and 
traffic,  where  and  how  our  surplus  products  find  a  market, 
whence  we  obtain  the  chief  articles  of  daily  use,  and  the  ex- 
ports which  the  leading  commercial  cities  contribute  to  the 
world's  supply. 

The  Maps  challenge  comparison  in  point  of  correctness,  dis- 
tinctness, and  artistic  finish.  The  Physical  Maps,  telling  at  once 
the  whole  story  in  relief,  mineral  resources,  and  animal  and 
vegetable  life,  are,  it  is  claimed,  unequaled  in  usefulness,  com- 
prehensiveness, and  beauty. 

D.  APPLETOX  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS, 

New  York,  Boston,  Chicago,  San  Francisco. 


CORNELL'S  GEOGRAPHICAL  SERIES. 


Revised  yearly,  so  a3  to  embody  all  late  statistics  and  geo- 
graphical changes. 

THE    COMMON-SCHOOL    SERIES. 

I.  Cornell's  Primary  Geography.     Forming  Part  First 
of  a  Systematic  Series  of  School  Geographies.     Small  4to. 
•     100  pages.     15  Maps.    Beautifully  illustrated. 

H.  Cornell's  Intermediate  Geography.  Embracing  a 
Summary  of  Physical  Geography,  a  complete  set  of  new 
Maps,  a  simple  and  practical  System  of  Map-Drawing,  and 
a  comprehensive  course  in  Political  and  Commercial  Geog- 
raphy, for  intermediate  and  Grammar  grades  of  Schools. 
Illustrated  by  our  best  artists.  Large  4to.  104  pages.  17 
Maps. 

SUPPLEMENTARY    WORKS. 

Cornell's  Physical  Geography.  Accompanied  with  nine- 
teen pages  of  Maps,  a  great  variety  of  Map-questions,  and 
One  Hundred  and  Thirty  Diagrams  and  Pictorial  Illustra- 
tions ;  and  embracing  a  detailed  description  of  the  Physical 
Features  of  the  United  States.  For  Advanced  Classes  and 
High  Schools.  Large  4to.  104  pages. 

Grammar-School  Geography.  For  same  grades  as  Inter- 
mediate, but  fuller  in  detail.  Large  4to.  124  pages.  In- 
tended as  a  substitute  for  the  Intel-mediate  Geography  when 
a  more  extended  course  is  desired. 

Cornell's  First  Steps  in  Geography.  Intended  to  pre- 
cede Cornell's  Geographical  Series,  and  to  introduce  the 
little  pupil  pleasantly  and  profitably  to  the  rudiments  of 
Geography.  Child's  quarto.  68  pages. 

Cornell's  High-School  Geography  and  Atlas.  GEOG- 
RAPHY, large  12mo.  405  pages.  ATLAS,  very  large  4to. 
Containing  a  complete  set  of  Maps  for  study  ;  also,  a  set  of 
Reference  Maps  for  family  use. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS, 

New  York,  Boston,  Chicago,  San  Francisco, 


CORNELL'S  OUTLINE  MAPS  AND  KEY. 


Thirteen  Maps,  mounted  on  Muslin.     Thoroughly  revised  and 

corrected.     The  series  consists  of  the  following  Maps  : 

THE  WORLD.  Size,  82  by  52  inches.  Comprising  the  East- 
ern  and  Western  Hemispheres,  Diagrams  of  Meridians  and 
Parallels,  Tropics  and  Zones,  Northern  and  Southern  Hemi- 
spheres, and  Heights  of  the  Principal  Mountains. 

NORTH  AMERICA.     Size,  27  by  32  inches. 

THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  CANADA.   Size,  32  by  52  inches. 

EASTERN  AND  MIDDLE  STATES.  Size,  27  by  32  inches. 
With  enlarged  plans  of  the  Vicinities  of  Boston  and  New 
York. 

SOUTHERN  STATES.     Size,  27  by  32  inches. 

WESTERN  STATES.     Size,  27  by  32  inches. 

MEXICO,  CENTRAL  AMERICA,  AND  WEST  INDIES.  Size, 
27  by  32  inches.  With  enlarged  plans  of  the  Isthmus  of 
Nicaragua  and  the  Great  Antilles. 

SOUTH  AMERICA.     Size,  27  by  32  inches. 

EUROPE.     Size,  27  by  32  inches. 

BRITISH  ISLANDS.     Size,  27  by  32  inches. 

CENTRAL,  SOUTHERN,  AND  WESTERN  EUROPE.  Size, 
27  by  32  inches. 

ASIA.  Size,  27  by  32  inches.  With  enlarged  plans  of  Pales- 
tine and  the  Sandwich  Islands. 

AFRICA.  Size,  27  by  32  inches.  With  enlarged  plans  of 
Egypt,  Liberia,  and  Cape  Colony. 

Appletons'  Map-Drawing  Cards.  Consisting  of  Twenty- 
two  Sheets,  on  which  the  parallels  and  meridians  are  pro- 
jected in  correspondence  with  those  on  the  follow  ing  maps 
of  APPLETONS'  HIGHER  GEOGRAPHY,  but  may  be  used  with 
any  geography,  viz. : 

Western  Hemisphere  ;  Eastern  Hemisphere  :  North  Ameri- 
ca ;  Dominion  of  Canada  ;  United  States  ;  New  England  States  ; 
Middle  Atlantic  States;  Southern  States — Eastern  Division, 
Western  Division  ;  Central  and  North  Central  States — Eastern 
Division,  Western  Division  ;  Rocky  Mountains  and  Pacific  States 
and  Territories — Northern  Division,  Southern  Division  ;  Mexico, 
Central  America,  West  Indies  ;  South  America  ;  Europe  ;  Brit- 
ish Isles  ;  German  Empire,  Holland,  and  Belgium  ;  Southern  and 
part  of  Central  Europe  ;  Asia  ;  Africa ;  Oceania. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS, 

New  York,  Boston,  Chicago,  San  Francisco. 


APPLETONS'  ARITHMETICAL  SERIES. 

By  G.  P.  QUACKENBOS,  LL.  D. 
Upon  the  Basis  of  the  Works  of  GEORGE  E.  PERKINS,  LL.  D. 


This  Series  of  Arithmetics  embraces  five  well-graded  text- 
books, which  are  as  nearly  perfect,  in  all  respects,  as  care, 
thought,  and  labor,  could  make  them. 

THE  COMMON-SCHOOL  SERIES. 

A  Primary  Arithmetic.     ICmo.     108  pages. 

Beautifully  illustrated ;  carries  the  beginner  through  the 
first  four  Rules  and  the  simple  Tables,  combining  mental  ex- 
ercises with  examples  for  the  slate. 

An  Elementary  Arithmetic.     12mo.     144  pages. 

Reviews  the  subjects  of  the  Primary,  in  a  style  adapted  to 
somewhat  maturer  minds.  Also  embraces  Fractions,  Federal 
Money,  Reduction,  and  the  Compound  Rules. 

A  Practical  Arithmetic.     12mo.     33C  pages. 

Prepared   expressly   for  Common   Schools,  giving   special 
prominence  to  the  branches  of  Mercantile  Arithmetic,  and  teach- 
ing the  processes  actually  used  by  business  men. 
KEY  TO  SAME. 

SUPPLEMENTARY   BOOKS. 

A  Mental  Arithmetic.     16mo.     168  pages. 

Designed  to  impart  readiness  in  mental  calculations,  and 
extending  them  to  all  the  operations  of  business  life. 

A  Higher  or  Commercial  Arithmetic.     A  Comprehen- 
sive Treatise  for  Advanced  Pupils.     12mo.     420  pages. 
This  volume  contains  all  that  is  required  for  a  thorough  mas- 
tery of  the  theory  and  practice  of  Arithmetic.     It  is  especially 
full  and  valuable  in  the  higher  branches  of  mercantile  arithmetic, 
business  forms,  and  all  calculations  pertaining  to  practical  busi- 
ness life. 

KEY  TO  SAME. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS, 

New  York,  Boston,  Chicago,  San  Francisco. 


MATHEMATICS. 


Gillespie's  Land  Surveying.  Comprising  the  Theory  de- 
veloped from  Five  Elementary  Principles  ;  and  the  Practice 
with  the  Chain  alone,  the  Con)  pass,  the  Transit,  the  Theod- 
olite, the  Plane  Table,  etc.  Illustrated  by  400  Engravings 
and  a  Magnetic  Chart.  By  W.  M.  GILLESPIE,  LL,  D.,  Civil 
Engineer,  Professor  of  Civil  Engineering  in  Union  College. 
8vo.  508  pages. 

A  double  object  has  been  kept  in  view  in  the  preparation  of 
the  volume,  viz.,  to  make  an  introductory  treatise  easy  to  be 
mastered  by  the  young  scholar  or  the  practical  man  of  little 
previous  acquirement,  the  only  prerequisites  being  arithmetic 
and  a  little  geometry ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  make  the  instruc- 
tion of  such  a  character  as  to  lay  a  foundation  broad  enough 
and  deep  enough  for  the  most  complete  superstructure  which  the 
professional  student  may  subsequently  wish  to  raise  upon  it. 

Gillespie's  Higher  Surveying.  Edited  by  CADV  STALKY, 
A.  M.,  C.  E.  Comprising  Direct  Leveling,  Indirect  or  Trig- 
onometric Leveling,  Barometric  Leveling,  Topography, 
Mining,  Surveying,  the  Sextant,  and  other  Reflecting  In- 
struments, Hydrographical  Surveying,  and  Spherical  Sur- 
veying or  Geodesy.  8vo.  173  pages. 

Elements  of  Plane  and  Spherical  Trigonometry, 
with  Applications.  By  EUGENE  L.  RICHARDS,  B.  A., 
Assistant  Professor  of  Mathematics  in  Yale  College. 
12mo.  295  pages. 

Williamson's  Integral  Calculus,  containing  Applications 
to  Plane  Curves  and  Surfaces,  with  numerous  Examples 
12mo.  375  pages. 

"Williamson's  Differential  Calculus,  containing  the 
Theory  of  Plane  Curves,  with  numerous  Examples.  12mo. 
416  pages. 

Perkins's  Elements  of  Algebra.     12mo.    244  pages. 
Inventional  Geometry.     Science  Primer  Series.     18mo. 

The  Universal  Metric  System.  By  ALFRED  COLIN,  C.  E. 
12mo. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS, 

New  York,  Boston,  Chicago,  San  Francisco. 


BOOK-KEEPING  AND  COMMERCIAL  LAW. 


Marsh's  Single-Entry  Book-Keeping.  Improved  by  a 
Proof  or  Balance,  and  applied  to  Partnership  Business ; 
comprising  a  Series  of  Mercantile  Transactions  arranged  to 
form  a  Course  of  Practice  adapted  to  the  Wholesale  and 
Retail  Business  in  the  United  States.  8vo.  142  pages. 
Printed  in  Colors. 

Marsh's  Double-Entry  Book-Keeping.  Simplified  by 
the  Application  of  an  Infallible  Rule  for  Journalizing ; 
calculated  to  insure  a  Complete  Knowledge  of  the  Theory 
and  Practice  of  Accounts  ;  being  a  scries  of  well-selected 
Mercantile  Transactions ;  including  numerous  Examples  of 
Mercantile  Calculations,  and  an  Original  Diagram,  showing 
the  Relation  the  Account-Books  bear  to  each  other.  8vo. 
Printed  in  Colors.  232  pages. 
BLANKS  to  the  above.  Six  books  to  each  set. 

Has  well's  Double-Entry  Book-Keep  ing.    Analytically 

and  practically  illustrated.     8vo.     203  pages. 
BLANKS  TO  SAME. 

Marsh's  Bank  Book-Keeping  and  Joint-Stock  Accounts. 
Exemplified  and  elucidated  in  a  Complete  Set  of  Account- 
Books,  printed  in  Colors,  arranged  in  accordance  with  the 
Principles  of  Double  Entry,  and  embracing  the  Routine  of 
Business  from  the  Organization  of  a  Company  to  the  Dec- 
laration of  a  Dividend,  with  all  the  Forms  and  Details, 
and  an  Original  Diagram.  4to.  300  pages. 
The  Bank  Book-Keeping  is  the  first  and  only  work  published 

in  this  country  or  in  Europe  devoted  exclusively  to  keeping 

books  in  Banks  and  Joint-Stock  Companies. 

Li.  L.  L. ;  or,  Fifty  Law  Lessons.  Embracing  all  the 
Technical  Points  of  Business  Law.  By  AETHCR  B.  CLARK. 
12mo.  201  pages. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS, 

New  York,  Boston,  Chicago,  San  Francisco. 


ENGLISH  LANGUAGE,  COMPOSITION,  and  LIT- 
ERATURE. 


The  Child's  Book  of  Language.  A  Graded  Series  of 
Lessons  and  Blanks,  in  four  numbers,  with  a  Teacher's 
Edition.  By  J.  H.  STICKNEY. 

No.  1.  STORIES  IN  PICTURES.      No.  3.  STUDIES  IN  PLANTS. 

No.  2.  STUDIES  IN  ANIMALS.       No.  4.  STUDIES  OF  WORDS. 

Letters  and  Lessons  in  Language.    In  Four  Parts.    By 
J.  H.  STICKNET.    A  sequel  to  "  The  Child's  Book  of  Lan- 
guage." 
THE  SAME,    Book  V.— GRAMMAR. 

Studies  in  Language  :  A  Teacher's  Guide  to  "  Letters  and 
Lessons  in  Language.  By  J.  H.  STICKNEY. 

De  Graff's  School-room  Exercise  Books,  For  Primary 
Grades.  Designed  for  written  spelling,  and  exercises  in  the 
correct  use  of  language,  composition,  etc.  32  pages. 

Quackenbos's  First  Lessons  in  Composition.  Em- 
bracing full  Directions  on  the  Subject  of  Punctuation ;  with 
Copious  Exercises.  12mo.  182  pages. 

Quackenbos's  Advanced  Course  of  Composition  and 
Rhetoric.  12mo.  450  pages. 

Bain's  English  Composition  and  Rhetoric.  Ameri- 
can edition,  revised.  12mo.  343  pages. 

Landmarks  of  English  Literature.  By  HENRY  J.  Nic- 
OLL.  12mo.  460  pages. 

[SEE  NEST  PAGE.] 


ENGLISH  LANGUAGE  AND 


Spalding's  History  of  English  Literature.  12mo. 
413  pages. 

English  Language  and  its  Early  Literature.  By  J. 
H.  GILMORE,  A.  M.  12mo.  138  pages. 

Latham's  Hand-Book  of  the  English  Language. 
12 ma  39S  pages. 

Three  Centuries  of  English  Literature.  By  CHAKLKS 
DCKE  YONGE.  12mo.  649  pages. 

Literature  Primers.     18mo  vols.    Flexible  cloth. 

Graham's  English  Synonymes.  Classified  and  explained 
With  Practical  Exercises.  By  HENEY  REED,  LL.  D.  12mo. 
344  pages. 

Uobbins's  Class-Book  of  Poetry.     12ma    252  pages. 
Home  Pictures  of  English  Poetry.     1  voL,  12mo. 

Heid's  Dictionary  of  the  English  Language.  12mo. 
572  pages. 

Webster's  Quarto  Dictionary,  unabridged.  Thor- 
oughly revised  and  greatly  enlarged  and  improved. 

Graded  Instruction  in  English.  For  the  Use  of  Teach- 
ers. By  ORVILLE  T.  BRIGHT.  18mo.  80  pages. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS, 

New  York,  Boston,  Chicago,  San  Francisco. 


HISTORY. 

-> 

duackenbos's  American  History  for  Schools.  Ac- 
companied with  numerous  Illustrations  and  thirty-six  Col- 
ored Maps. 

duackenbos's  Elementary  History  of  the  United 
States.  With  numerous  Illustrations  and  Maps.  12mo. 
260  pages. 

Quackenbos's    Primary    History    of    the    United 

States.     Handsomely   illustrated.     Child's  quarto.     192 
pages. 

Quackenbos's  School  History  of  the  United  States. 
From  the  Earliest  Discoveries  to  the  Present  Time.  With 
numerous  Maps,  Plans  of  Battle-Fields,  and  Pictorial  Il- 
lustrations. 12mo.  536  pages. 

Quackenbos's  Illustrated  School  History  of  the 
World.  From  the  Earliest  Ages  to  the  Present  Time. 
With  eighteen  Colored  Maps  and  numerous  Engravings. 
12mo.  473  pages. 

Child's  First  History  of  Rome.  By  Miss  E.  M.  SEWELI. 
18mo. 

Child's  First  History  of  Greece.  By  Miss  E.  M.  SETVELL. 
ISmo. 

A  History  of  Greece.  From  the  Earliest  Times  to  the 
Present.  By  T.  T.  TIMAYENIS.  With  Maps  and  Illustra- 
tions. 2  vols.  12mo. 

A  Class-Book  History  of  England.  With  numerous 
Woodcuts  and  Historical  Maps.  By  the  Rev.  DAVID  MOR- 
RIS, B.  A.  12mo. 

Markham's  History  of  England.  From  the  Invasion  of 
Julius  Caesar  to  the  Reign  of  Victoria.  Revised  by  ELIZA 
ROBBINS.  12  mo, 

[SEE  NEXT  PAGE.] 


HISTOR  F.-(Continued.) 

Xohlrausch's  History  of  Germany.  From  the  Earliest 
Period  to  the  Present  Time.  Svo.  487  pages. 

Arnold's  History  of  Home.  Three  volumes  in  one.  Svo. 
670  pages. 

Arnold's  Lectures  on  Modern  History.  With  a  Preface 
and  Notes,  by  HENRY  REED,  M.  A.  Large  12mo.  428  pages. 

Greene's  History  of  the  Middle  Ages.  12mo.  450 
pages. 

Yonge's  Three  Centuries  of  Modern  History.  Large 
12mo. 

Taylor's  Manual  of  Ancient  History.  Containing  the 
Political  History,  Geographical  Position,  and  Social  State 
of  the  Principal  Nations  of  Antiquity,  and  illustrated  by 
the  Discoveries  of  Modern  Scholars  and  Travelers.  Svo. 
358  pages. 

Taylor's  Manual  of  Modern  History.  Containing  the 
Rise  and  Progress  of  the  Principal  European  Nations,  their 
Political  History,  and  the  Changes  in  their  Social  Condi- 
tion ;  with  a  History  of  the  Colonies  founded  by  Europeans. 
Svo.  312  pages. 

Taylor's  Manual  of  Ancient  and  Modern  History. 
The  two  foregoing  volumes  in  one.  Svo.  670  pages. 

Guizot's  History  of  Civilization  in  Europe.  From 
the  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  to  the  French  Revolution. 
12mo.  316  pages. 

Mangnall's  Historical  and  Miscellaneous  Ques- 
tions. From  the  eighty-fourth  London  edition.  With 
large  Additions.  By  Mrs.  JCLIA  LAWRENCE.  Fifth  Ameri- 
can edition,  with  a  Chapter  on  the  American  Constitution. 
12mo.  896  pages. 

[SEE  NEXT  PAGE.] 


EISTOK  F.— (Continued.) 


Willard's  General  History,  from  B.  c.  800  to  A.  D.  1876. 
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ogies. 8vo. 

The  World  in  the  Middle  Ages.  An  Histork  1  Geog- 
raphy. From  the  Close  of  the  Fourth  to  the  Middle  of  the 
Fifteenth  Century.  By  ADOLPHCS  KCEPPEN.  Professor  of 
History,  Greek,  and  German  Literature  in  Franklin  and 
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Putz's  Ancient  Geography  and  History.  12mo.  896 
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Putz's  Mediaeval  Geography  and  History.  12mo. 
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Putz's  Modern  Geography  and  History.  I2mo.  836 
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Dew's  Digest  of  the  Laws,  Customs,  Manners,  and  Inrllt  > 
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Schmidt's  Course  of  Ancient  Geography.  12mo.  328 
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A  History  of  Germany :  From  the  Earliest  Period  to  the 
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History  Primers.  Edited  by  J.  R.  GRKEN,  M.  A.,  Examiner 
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GREECE C.  A.  FTFFE. 

ROME M.  CREIGHTON. 

EUROPE E.  A.  FREEMAN. 

FRANCE CHARLOTTE  M.  YOKGE. 

OLD  GREEK  LIFE J.  P.  MAHAFFY. 

ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES A.  S.  WILKINS. 

GEOGRAPHY GEORGE  GROTE. 

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Greene's  Primary  Botany. 

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J.  D.  Hooker's  Botany. 

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Eliza  A.  Youmans's  Second  Book  of  Bot- 
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Lindley  and  Moore's  Treasury  of  Bot- 
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A  Short  History  of  Natural   Science  and 
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ENT DAY.  For  Schools  and  Young  Persons.  With  Illus- 
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